This small chapbook consists of six relatively long poems, all dealing with the experience of nursing. "What the Nurse Likes" presents striking images and juxtapositions that turn ordinary actions into mysterious aspects of healing. In "Becoming the Patient" Cortney Davis, who is "tired of being the nurse," empathetically identifies with her patient.

"The Body Flute" sings of the body itself, "I go on loving the flesh / after you die." The nurse works with the visible parts of the body--touches, washes, inserts, and smoothes--during life and death. "At death," she concludes, "you become wholly mine."