Black and grey fine line tattoo of a dandelion seed head on the side ribs, with seeds drifting off and turning into small birds.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dandelion seeds turning into birds on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A small black tattoo of a dandelion seed head sits on the side of the ribs, with a long stem trailing downward. Loose seeds drift up and across the skin, and several of them turn into small bird silhouettes in flight. The ink is solid black with soft grey shading, and the composition runs diagonally from the lower left to the upper right above a white bra strap.

Fine line Ribs Dandelion Seed Bird Silhouette Stem

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Hal, the snow has shut the pass for nine days now and the Hollin Inn is full of people who have stopped pretending to be strangers. Mrs Ferrier has taught the commercial traveller to make dumplings, and he has taught the boy to play cribbage badly. I write this at the window table because it is the only place the draught doesn't reach my hands.

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I found your book on the top shelf of the back room, the one with the pressed things in it. Between pages sixty and sixty-one there was a dandelion clock, gone the colour of weak tea. I held it to the lamp and thought of the summer you lay in the long grass by the mill and blew every seed off at once, saying each one was a wish that had to fly all the way to Carlisle before it could come true. Some of them must have made it. You sent that postcard from Carlisle with no name on it.

This morning I opened the shutter and three sparrows were sitting on the sill, puffed up against the cold, while the snow came down in flakes so loose they looked like seed. I tried to count them, and they lifted all together, a little scatter of dark specks over the yard, and for a moment I could not tell which were birds and which were the last of summer. I have put the clock back in the book. I have not decided yet whether to send it.

The road is due to open on Thursday, the landlord says. Bring your boots. Keep your wishes in your pocket until you reach the inn, and I will keep the fire going.