Lác Leman

I walked out on the water with feet suddenly webbed. Even so, it was a long way across the lake to the Fountain, the Jet d’Eau. My legs tired from positioning my webbed feet flat on the water—if I tried to rise on my toes I lost all traction and was in danger of sinking to the bottom. Those who haven’t walked on water have no idea how precarious an act it is. They think I am sustained by miracle with no effort at all. Instead, it’s a matter of slogging away, one foot in front of the other, until you reach the goal, with the fountain throwing its fine spray in your face and the wind in your hair. Then the effort is forgotten and you want to do it all, the same thing, again and again.









Andrea Jackson’s fiction and poetry have appeared in various journals, most recently in Alligator Juniper (contest finalist; reprinted in Phone-Fiction.com), Meadowland Review, and A Quiet Courage. She has an MFA from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She is working on a biography/memoir based on her mother’s letters.