A soaking non sequitur.

Your friend was walking west
cross-town through the Village
with everything still wet
on a hallowed Sunday morning
as the birds tried to make the best
of soggy, swollen bread.

He felt his calf dampen
from the water that'd crawled
up his denim pantlegs
through capillary action
and decided to step higher--
you can never tell
what vile bodily fluids
are reconstituted by the rain
to float in city puddles
alive and well and malevolent.
The fumblings of Saturday night's
overserved bar patrons
become the trappings of
Sunday morning pedestrians
in another one of life's little pleasantries.
The man you claim to know trudged onward.

Food delivery boys of various ethnicities
earn their tips in the rain. Their bicycle helmets
are fitted with clear plastic faceshields, their brakes
screech obnoxiously if they work at all. A Mexican
rode by in his helmet and cheap poncho, his bike chain
padlocked around his waist for temporary storage
and tried to avoid the splintered skeletons
of discarded umbrellas trampled by the legion of taxis.
Wind destroys commuters' umbrellas, automobiles turn
the remnants into landmines for bicyclists. The cycle
continues everywhere, even in the Promised Land.

Smoke poured from manholes and seeped
through the asphalt where sizzling electric lines
had been damaged by the flood. Utility workers
in white and blue trucks worked overtime to combat
the smoldering rubber
more concerned with their pension plans
than the task at hand.
Coffee break came and the smoke billowed ominously
in the company of a nonchalant crew.

A mud-caked ragdoll laid in a puddle:
a sock with a ribbon for a scarf, buttons for eyes
and no one left to care--
another failed attempt
to reach out to fellow man.
The scattered evidence of a bum fight
in the form of tattered clothing
and useless trinkets spewing from a patched suitcase
further proved the point that the genius is right
and we're all doomed.

But never had our subject had so much hungover fun
as the time he watched a car with those sickly yellow plates
try to parallel park on a narrow one-way street
in Manhattan's West Village. The third time was the charm
for the Jersey boy, I mean. I hate to admit that he won.