Osprey

The great taloned osprey
nest in Scotland.
Her nest's the biggest
thing around, a spiked basket
with hungry ugly osprey offspring
in it. For months she sits on it.
He fishes, riding four-pound salmon
home like rockets. They get
all the way there before they die,
so muscular and brilliant
swimming through the sky.




Poem reprinted from The Best of It: New and Selected Poems. Copyright 2010 by Kay Ryan. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.