The Orange Bench

Alina Nguyen

The discomfort of it, inside the laundromat at the corner of Broadway & Griffin. I spent so much time, looking at the clothes turn & turn. We always waited for the loads to pile, before my father would load the shopping cart kept in the outdoor parking lot in the back of the duplex to take the dirtiness of the past week to clean. He claims that he can wash all our clothes until he dies: as long as I’m alive, you don’t have to labor. We’d all go together.

I was always allowed one drink. I chose Coke, always. The coins go down the slot, clicking things into place, revealing the cold can, ready to be cracked open. I called my parents today, complaining that what I’ve always wanted is hard. My father does what he does best, tells me about a wise phrase along the lines of cách con vượt qua điều khó khăn mới là điều quan trọng. My mother chimes in, I don’t know anything, & I made it, so can you.

I would like to be back here: 2826 N. Broadway, Lincoln Heights, CA 90031, sitting on the orange bench with them, as the washing machines wring out our clothes.

Contributors

Ber Anena

Ber Anena is a first-year Ph.D. student of Creative Writing at UNL. A Ugandan-born writer, editor, and performer, she graduated from Columbia University’s MFA Writing program in 2021. Anena’s debut poetry collection, A Nation in Labor , was the winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, in 2018.

Caroliena Cabada

Caroliena Cabada is a second-year Ph.D. student in Creative Writing at UNL. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University, where she was the 2018-2019 Pearl Hogrefe Fellow in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in Pleiades , perhappened mag , JMWW , and elsewhere.

Syble Heffernan

Syble is a first-year M.A. student in Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetry. Her research interests include Women and Gender Studies, queer theory, mental health and trauma, and creative writing as an instrument of collective healing and community development. Her work has appeared in Gnashing Teeth and Blanket Sea Press , among others.

Ian Maxton

Ian Maxton is a communist writer and critic. He is a second-year doctoral student in Creative Writing with a focus on experimental fiction and the novel. His work has appeared in Always Crashing , Protean , and Cease, Cows

Penny Molesso

Penny Molesso is a transmedia artist from Arkansas. They received their BFA at the University of Arkansas and are currently a third-year MFA student in Studio Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Nathaniel Nelson

Nathaniel Nelson is a first-year Creative Writing Ph.D. student with a concentration in Poetry. Their poems have appeared in The Southern Review and Birmingham Poetry Review

Alina Nguyen

Alina Nguyen is a first-year Ph.D. student in Poetry from Los Angeles, CA. At the California State University-Long Beach, she was awarded the Gerald Locklin Writing Prize where she earned her M.F.A. She is the author of the risograph-printed chapbook, Before There Were More Ghosts , from Tomorrow Today.