My high school boyfriend and I
decided on a name
for our child to be.

It seems so naïve now
I cringe to write it down,
laugh nervously.

But this was not funny to us then.
It was serious.
We would get married,
and be together, forever.

Like most hackneyed thoughts
it too dissipated
into other humdrum
clichés of college romance.

After we separated,
the moments gathered
like streakers on a college campus
exploding through my green
mind when someone new laid me
down, but now it’s many more years later
and even those images
of flash photography
fade.

Except I remember
we were supposed to name her
Ingrid
Alexander.

Had she been real
what else might I remember,
have missed
or forgotten?

What embers of hope
would still glow
in my thinned
faith in love?