I think about it less often than I should:
the one thing that defined all others.
The one article that changed my life.
The cover story on Brenda Kahn
in The Valley Advocate encouraged me
to see her when she went to Amherst
and when I did, I wanted to see her
the next night in Springfield.

I didn’t go, but when I moved back to New York
the next year, I went to see her at the Sidewalk Cafe
where I remained seated for about twenty seven years
where I began a journalist, a poet, an artist.

I got jobs through that location,
I got friends,
I got apartments.
My life was defined in most every way
through the decision to see Brenda Kahn
all thanks to the article in The Advocate.