Eating in the Underworld

Rachel Zucker

This small but powerful volume is really one long poem, meditating on the Persephone/Demeter/Hades story, told in fragments of diary entries, notes, and letters between the three principals.

"Am I the only one to notice the soft layer of haze above the snow?

Yo say you see butterflies in the skeleton pelvis, well,
what about the larger hand of the clock?
Or a cauldron for boiling water?"
(--"Letter: Demeter to Persephone")

Concise, image-laden, with a fine sense of observation and wisdom, Eating in the Underworld satisfies on every level save one; you wish it were longer.