On watching a woman getting her hair blown out at a Parisian salon

Sometimes, I just want to come to everyone's rescue -
the nauseous child on the merry-go-round,
a terrier stumbling in the rain,
a tourist lost in a matrix of maps,
an old man puffing on the uphills.

Or this - the woman at Chez Cheveux
getting her hair blown out
and the perfectly lovely set of curls disappearing
under the armed and dangerous hands of the coiffeuse.

I wanted to come to her rescue, too,
imagined I saw small beads of sweat beginning
at her neck, then her whole head drowning
in atomized heat.

I wanted to spin her chair around,
point her toward the window and outside,
where it was obvious the sky was on the verge
of something destructive and wet
and where, leaving the chemical comforts of this place,
she, too, would be forced
to return to herself.