Ask the Concierge Poem by Rita Ann Higgins

The demented walk tricky step here
jittery footfall, fractious jibe.
They bicker in the ‘everything for a $ shop'
later when the energy is spent
they sit with their own selves
their underweight psyche.

One begs outside a shop called ‘seduction'
underwear to raise the titanic
healthy looking mannequins with brazen breasts
balefulls of Canadian promise.
They come hither you but you never come hither them.
Their chilling look deceptive, their cherry lips,
kiss me kiss me, but only in your dreams loser.

Further down the street of the black squirrel
a shop owner boasts about the underground,
you should see our underground
safest in the world, no one ever gets plugged here.
In a doorway above Hades, a policeman tells a man with no legs,
my name is zero tolerance have you a licence for that rig?
My name is zero tolerance, where is your mud guard?

The concierge have the real power here
they take one look at your baggage, one look at you
haversacks disgust them, owners and trainers of haversacks disgust them more.
Cross them and you will never see one drop of Niagara fall.
They wide step and side eye you,
in their loose suits, hair oil up their sleeves,
their feet are made of sponge.
They deal in looks and eyebrow raising
The Concierge code, uncrackable to the luggage losers.

Back down on the high street
I ask the man outside ‘seduction' if I can take his picture.
Don't ask me, I have no picture to give or take,
what you see is what you get, you see nothing you get less.

What the concierge seeks he finds
he pirouettes, he plucks, he spins he flies
where the concierge lives, the beggar dies.