5 PM

By Sharon Tracey

---

It’s #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day‘s archives!

---

            —Jennifer Bartlett (1991-92); oil on canvas
 
 
How do you build a painting with only
sixty minutes to live
between five and six in the evening
on a seven square-foot grid—

she’s dug a fishpond in a courtyard
fissured it in time
stocked it with cold-blooded koi
dressed in calico and banana yellow

some seem dredged in flour as if
they might be battered. They dart
and swim among the water lilies
then tip their scales and slip

under as if cold war spies.
Leaves past their prime have fallen
and float upon the placid surface
like Matisse cutouts that have died.

So much happens in a single hour
and so little—you stare
at the appearance of depth
and think of the fish, the ticking clock,
where the weeping light goes

and realize that you could just walk away
just take something and walk—

---

---

Sharon Tracey is the author of three poetry collections—Land Marks (Shanti Arts 2022), Chroma: Five Centuries of Women Artists (Shanti Arts 2020), and What I Remember Most is Everything (All Caps Publishing 2017). Her poems have been published in Crab Creek Review, Terrain, and The Ekphrastic Review, among others. See sharontracey.com.

---

• 03/19 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Sunni Brown Wilkinson & local poet Elizabeth Jacobson / The BBar at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free

• Are you looking for editorial feedback? SWWIM’s editors offer commentary on 3-6 pages of poetry. Submit here!

• SWWIM Every Day accepts poetry translations for publication consideration. Please see swwim.org/submit for the full guidelines.

• Are you a SWWIMmer with literary news to share (publication/feature/award/book/book review)? We’d love to shout out your accomplishments in our Weekly Spotlight! Please fill out this form with your news. (No DMs on any social media platforms, please.)

• Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and Bluesky for more updates—and visit our website to see past, present, and future readings & events.

---

**We do our best to preserve the integrity of each poem; however, due to programming limitations, some poems may read differently on a mobile phone and in certain browsers. For best viewing, use Chrome on a desktop/laptop.