This Pressing Heat

this pressing heat
a man with a sleeping dog
waves his taxi on

Paul Conneally
Leicester
July 2015

Jobs Fair

She tells me she's tired. Her sandwich board is heavy and she's got three more hours of street pounding to complete before lunch. I see more and more young sandwich board men and women, often stationary at the intersection of two busy thoroughfares or roads, usually advertising one pizza chain or another, sometimes in fancy dress.

This young woman is kinetic, in civvies, not carrying a fast-food chain message but boards emblazoned with the slogan 'Jobs fair today - Free to attend - Hundreds of jobs'.

She smiles and walks on. I take her photo from behind and my mind rearranges the words to align with my thoughts:

Fair Jobs

TODAY!

Paul Conneally
May 21st 2015
Leicester UK

The Right Change

I pull up to the bumper of an old Ford Fiesta and reverse a little. Open the car door a smidgen, lean out and check that I'm parked inside the bay line. The offside rear tyre is just touching but it'll be fine.

It's warm for the end of September.

Students back for the new term stroll in sweatshirts and tees towards and from the University.

Toadstools growing at the base of a sycamore tree.

The first pay-station machine is 'not in use' so I walk a hundred yards up the road to the next one. I read the regs and rummage through my pockets for the right change.

Indian summer
the sun and six coins
in my palm

Paul Conneally