Love Isn’t Rent
1989 was scrawled in blue ink on the white border.
Two young women stood in front of an old Buick.
One is my mother at twenty-one—already lacquered in hairspray, already posing, her smile aimed at the lens like a chrome hood ornament.
And she is deliberately leaning away from the other woman.
The other woman is twenty-four, in a faded denim jacket, laughing at something off-frame.
And she has my face.