Becky Jo Gesteland is a professor of English at Weber State University, where she teaches classes in American literature and technical writing. Her previous publications include personal essays (Gravel, So to Speak, Palaver, Heartland Review West, and Role Reboot); interviews with Geraldine Brooks and Alice Sebold (Weber: The Contemporary West); a cultural analysis of anthropologist Gladys Reichard’s fieldwork with the Navajo (Plateau Journal); and articles on content management, program assessment, and XML (various technical communication books and journals). Becky’s latest project is a personal essay collection titled Unraveling. In her spare time, she indulges in Nordic Noir.

Bubba

I open the garage door pretending to hear his greeting, his howl. Drool dried on walls, mopboards, refrigerator, cupboards, television, and crown molding around doors—doors opening to the outside, where he marks trees, bushes, street signs, rocks, and hydrants on walks that shortened from overnight wanderings in the foothills to circumnavigations of the golf course to strolls around the tennis courts to shuffles down the block and back home. A closing circle, a tightening spiral, a narrowing loop in to the last few steps on his lawn, his grass. I carry him inside and lay him on his bed.