Oh, Joe. You’re pure as anything.

There’s no genre called “rumination”, but I think perhaps there should be. This little fragment of gorgeous juvenilia is a big gush of worry about daring to disturb the universe – so wise and so Tiggerish. I was going to write “in a manner that only those aged ‘19 almost 20’ can muster”, but that’s an absolute lie.

From The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard, The Library of America, 2012