A Voice At Easter

Today, early
on Easter Morning,
I reached the start
of the long awaited
final stage:

I heard a voice,
perhaps
my own voice, more
lyrical than usual,
urgently describing
over and over
an arm and a motion —
some arm holding
a long blade
slashing, its arc
aimed between
a clavicle and a throat
and the throat in danger
was my own.
This kept happening
till the day
was almost over.

I tell you,
I have expected this.

I did not know for sure
how it would be,
and while I’m not happy,
there are at least
concrete issues now
to consider and solve:

how I can be standing inside
the body with the knife
and be also the body
that the knife divides;

or how the voice can
be my own
and still foreign;

or why this all began
as I looked at the daffodils
and enjoyed the sunshine;

or why I still carved the ham at dinner
against my better judgment;

what the voice will say in the morning
or why it was quiet after I spoke back —

think, I tell myself.

Think hard, figure it out.
Think.  Don’t feel.

Whatever you do,
do not feel.

Push that stone
back over that particular door.