The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

by Sophia Macris

I was in New Haven, recovering from a Canadian boy who, after several months of chicanery had suddenly absconded to Ireland, and another girl therein. We were sitting in Mary’s apartment, nursing my broken heart with a Roberta Flack record, and the last track on the A-side was “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” The Canadian heartbreak was suddenly brief and insignificant. Roberta Flack took me back three and a half years, when I wouldn’t have wasted my time with a bartender, Canadian or otherwise. The record, the fact that it was a vinyl recording rather than a CD or mp3, the deliberateness of the track placement, it fit so perfectly with October, 2001. I had done this all before, Roberta Flack late at night, Sicilian pizza from Noch's, the physical act of turning over the record.

6S

Sophia Macris likes owls, James Merrill, and tequila shots. She only gets published once every four years, but is looking to improve on that.