Dave Bonta's "Fee" reads like a riddle or a bargain. Someone is asked to pay, or perhaps to prove something, by producing five pieces, and each one is an odd, vivid image: a morning of ash, a white gull, a parson wrapped in paper, a castle of chocolate, a well at night. The title suggests a price, but the poem never says who is asking or what the payment buys. That gap is part of its charm.
The speaker's feelings are hard to pin down, but the tone seems calm and a little playful, like a fairy-tale demand. The images pull in different directions. Ash and the night well feel quiet and dark, while the chocolate castle and the paper parson are almost comic, fragile and make-believe. The gull is the one bright, living thing. Together they create a dreamlike mood, part sorrow and part whimsy, where the reader has to decide what each piece is worth.