To what does the pronoun “it” refer in lines 5-6 in poem “the last word”
poem
when i saw your head bow, i knew i had beaten you.
you shed no tear not tear me it held your neck
bare for the blow i had been too frightened
ever to deliver, even in words. and now
in spite of me, plummeting it came.
frozen we both waited for its fall.
most of what you gave me i have forgotten
with my mind but taken into my body,
but this i remember well; the bones of your neck
and the strain in my shoulders as i heaved you that huge
double blade and snapped my wrists to swing
the handle down and hear the axe’s edge
nick through your flesh and creak into the block.