Close photo of a black fine line script tattoo reading dum spero spero along the ribs, worn beneath a black lace bandeau top.

Dum spero spero script on the ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a small black script tattoo reading "dum spero spero" on the side of a torso, just below a black lace bandeau. The lettering is thin, slanted and evenly spaced, with the ink looking crisp against the skin. The background is dark and the framing is tight on the midriff, with a black top and white printed fabric at the left edge.

Lettering Fine line Ribs Script Latin phrase Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lambing shed smells of iodine and wet straw, and the ewe in pen four has been straining since before the light came up. You kneel in the straw with your sleeves pushed past the elbow, the way your grandfather taught you, and you wait for the feet to show.

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Your father's handwriting is on the feed book hanging from the nail by the door, slanted hard to the right, every figure crossed like a fence post. Beneath the last entry, in the same stubby pencil, he has written dum spero spero. He said it the week the bank letter came in October, and again when the frost blackened the early barley. You never asked him where he got it. You have only ever heard it from him, under his breath, when the sums would not come right.

The lamb arrives backwards at ten to six, grey and limp as a wet glove. You clear its nose with two fingers, swing it, rub it hard with a fistful of straw until it coughs. It sneezes, then tries to stand on legs like folded umbrellas. The ewe groans and turns her head to it. Your hands are shaking now that it's over, so you press them flat against your thighs and let them stop.

When the yard is pale with light you walk up to the house and find the feed book open on the kitchen table, his pencil lying beside it. Under his line you write the date, the ewe's number, one lamb, alive. Then, small and slanted like his, you add the phrase too, and close the book on it so the frost cannot get in.