Gunn's poems are lyrical, restrained, yet brutally honest. The work gains in power because of its lack of hysteria or exhibitionism. The use of meter and rhyme also contribute to the intensity, perhaps by providing the reader with sufficient distance to see more clearly the horror of a world in which "Of course the dead outnumber us / --How their recruiting armies grow!" ("Death's Door").

Poems about the experience of dying from the patient's and/or survivor's standpoint include "Lament," "Terminal," "Still Life," "Sacred Heart," "Memory Unsettled," and the title poem. "Well Dennis O'Grady" is a lovely little poem about an aged man "delighted to be out / in the slight December sunshine. . . ."