Sticky floor

Anton Frost

The half-full green bottle
that you threw at me

missed and hit
the wall,

shattering like a glass vase
with a pale drunk flower inside.

it was the last thing
nearly touching my face

that you had held

so when you stormed out
in your skirting thunderhead

and the bruised cloud
of your outraged breathing

I put up imaginary
police-line tape

and bordered the droplets
and broken glass

with chalk lines.

I was guilty
but I would follow procedure anyway.

Even if it meant
you coming back and seeing me

bowing low over the linoleum
as if begging.

Anton Frost has appeared in Parcel, Verdad, The Bacon Review, Grasslimb, and elsewhere. He lives in Grand Haven, Michigan.