Fetish — Summary

Dave BontaAnxious

Carried in a black box, my sugar woman brought me perspective, and I saw people as guns— and I was the best that any had. I got out of my chest the orders to stop all dangerous persons going or coming. How I slept and was not sick I know not.

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The poem is strange and dreamlike, and it doesn't give up its meaning easily. The speaker receives something carried in a black box, which he calls "my sugar woman." The phrase is oddly tender and oddly objectifying at once, which fits the title, since a fetish is an object treated as if it holds a special power. Whatever is in the box changes how he sees the world. Suddenly people look like guns, and he is the best gun any of them has.

That shift is unsettling. The speaker seems to feel powerful, even proud, but the power is cold: he gives orders to stop "all dangerous persons / going or coming," as though he has become a guard on duty against everyone. The last lines add confusion. He slept and wasn't sick, and he admits he doesn't know how. The mood is tense, feverish and slightly eerie, a mix of swagger and unease. It suggests, judging by the imagery, that this new "perspective" has a cost.

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