Black and grey tattoo of a feather with birds flying away and the script words Your Wings Were Ready But My Heart Was Not, on a person's upper back and shoulder.

Feather, birds and quote on upper back

Lettering · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A feather with fine shading runs down the left side of the image, with a flock of small birds rising from its tip towards the upper left. Four lines of cursive script read Your Wings Were Ready But My Heart Was Not, set to the right of the feather across the shoulder blade. The design is entirely black and grey, with the photo taken from behind the subject against a dim interior background.

Lettering Shoulder Back Feather Bird Quote Script word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The gulls have taken the chapel roof again and Mr Pascoe has written to the council twice, so you'll be glad to know the town is much as you left it. I went down to the quay this morning with the heel of yesterday's loaf, the way you always did, and found a grey feather snagged in the rope of the bollard by the fish market. I put it in the biscuit tin with your baptism card and the bit of sea glass you swore was a diamond.

The Marigold sails on the evening tide, you said, and I have packed your oilskins in tissue paper as though you were going somewhere they would rot. Your father would have laughed at me. He always said you were born with your boots on and I thought he was boasting. Last night I sat in the kitchen with the lamp out and listened to the boats knock against the wall, and I could not decide whether I was praying for a fair crossing or for you to change your mind, and I am ashamed to say I did both.

Mrs Hocking's girl says the ship is bound for Halifax and that you'll be gone two winters at least. I have told her it's a fine thing, which it is. You have wings, love, and I never once doubted they'd carry you. It's only that I had got used to the weight of you on my side of the table.

Go on then. Send a postcard with a gull on it, and I'll pin it up next to the feather.

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