Thin as Air

In Thin as Air, poet Ellie Altman faces with curiosity and confusion the reality of her own aging body and the question of where to find the nourishment she needs as her muscles and bones spin themselves finer and finer with each passing day. Will she eventually become so slender and spare, taking up so little space, that her diaphanous heart scatters in the wind? In each poem, she "deftly darts on surfaces into a disappearing act, // gathering observations without leaving a trace." But despite her fears, there is joy in the idea of smallness too-the small moments and little things that make each day worth flitting and fluttering through. On the underside of every struggle, every questioning, is the soft, persistent glow of optimism as these poems embrace the late season as the time for rebirth-her slow unraveling and shrinking making way for a metamorphosis.