Available from Jane's Boy Press:
And the Moon is Full Tonight Release Date: November 7, 2014 50 pages, paperback $12.00 MSRP 
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CJ Southworth
A Pushcart-Prize nominated poet and 2015 winner of the Allen Ginsberg Award, CJ Southworth teaches English at SUNY Jefferson in Watertown, NY. His work has appeared in over 20 publications, including Assaracus, Main Street Rag, Weave, The Paterson Literary Review, and many others. In 2014, he founded Jane's Boy Press with the intention of promoting new, emerging, and established poets. When not focusing on his teaching or writing careers. He earned his doctoral degree from SUNY Binghamton in spring 2016. Born Carlton D. Fisher, he officially changed his name in May of 2016 to honor his grandparents and mother, who raised him.
Distemper
She said it was the humane thing to do, and I didn’t know there were more humane ways that we couldn’t afford, especially for just a barn cat, so I filled the bucket with water, and tried to get the temperature just right so it would be like a warm bath-- not scalding like the one his mother had fallen into when she was a kitten, burning off half her fur and healing her nipples over so that he was the only one to survive out of the litter of eight. And once it was bath temperature, I picked Buddy up, with his one clubbed paw that had gotten caught once in the gutter cleaner chain, but healed, and I lowered him into the bucket, because my mom said it was the humane thing to do, because if you don’t stop distemper it will spread to all the cats, and they will all get lethargic and quiet and sniffle and slowly, slowly just stop living, but it will be painful and awful and long. And I watched, as he twitched a little bit, not thinking, at eight, that the water was filling his lungs, that this wasn’t like just softly going to sleep, but the distemper had made him too weak to do much more than flinch a little bit beneath the surface, wouldn’t even allow him to lift his head above the water, and when it was over, I pulled him out of the bucket and laid him on the towel-- Buddy, who was just a barn cat, like every other barn cat, each one of which I had a name for had held from the day they were born, had watched as they opened their eyes and went from dragging their fat kitten bellies along the bottoms of boxes to running between the dandelions on warmer spring days. I wrapped the towel over him, and left him for my father who would spread him on the field like other things we no longer had use for, not thinking, at eight, that the coy dogs would come and drag the body off. I did it because my mother asked, because she said it was the humane thing to do. -from And the Moon is Full Tonight Missed Connections
March 4th: “You were driving a red truck, and you turned without your signal on, but you saw me on the corner, and I thought you smiled. If you did, hit me up you made me smile too.” March 10th: “You were jogging in the rain at the entrance to the park while I was walking my dog. You said hello, and I just didn’t know what to say. You were so beautiful. Please tell me you saw me too.” March 16th: “You were looking for the right kind of chips, And I helped you find them. Your eyes were so deep I didn’t know how to tell you what I really wanted to, but I’m saying it now. If you’re reading. I can’t stop thinking of you.” All these moments of lives touching, glancing off one another. If I could post my own it would say: April 2nd: “You were walking out the door, and I was screaming that all I wanted was for you to go. But that wasn’t what I meant, and I thought you of all people would know that. And by time I meant to say I was sorry, you were too far away to hear.” If you’re reading, I mean it now. - from And the Moon is Full Tonight |
