Black and grey ink drawing of a ribcage, spine and pelvis entwined with flowers and leaves inside a dotted circle, labelled Libra, as a tattoo design.

Libra skeleton and flowers design

Black and grey · Flash

A pen and ink drawing of a ribcage, curved spine and pelvis, with clusters of small flowers and leaves growing through the bones. A dotted circle surrounds the lower part of the design, and scattered dots and petals float around the top. The word LIBRA and a short italic line of text sit beneath the drawing on a plain white background.

Ribcage Spine Flower Leaves Petal Zodiac Dotted circle Skeleton Text

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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

Mrs Ostrander never lets a guest carry their own trunk up the stairs at the Gull and Lantern, but she weighs every one on the brass scales in the hall first. You arrive in October with a cardboard case tied up with string and a letter from a cousin who never wrote back. She reads the needle, sniffs, and says the room is paid through Thursday, which is how she says she has decided to keep you.

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The house stands on the cliff road at Saltcombe, and the sea comes in under the windows like a debt that keeps getting repaid. Each morning you walk the shingle past the black stumps of the old pier. A woman sells winkles from a bucket outside the chandlery, and a man mends nets with a needle carved from whalebone that he says belonged to his grandfather. Nobody asks what you did before. They ask whether you take the blue cup or the chipped one, and you learn to say the chipped one, because it holds more tea.

On the last Sunday of the month the wind gets into the chimneys and the whole house hums. Mrs Ostrander finds you on the landing with the case open on the carpet, turning over a pair of spectacles, a bus ticket and a pressed primrose. 'Bring it down,' she says. 'I want to see how much you're carrying.' You set it on the brass pan. The needle swings, trembles, and settles exactly level, as though someone has taken out the weight and left the balance.

You stand there longer than you mean to. Mrs Ostrander takes the spectacles and folds them into your palm. 'Nobody leaves this house heavier than they came,' she says, which sounds like a rule and is really a kindness. In the morning you pay the bill in coppers, shoulder the empty case, and walk down to the sea with your hands free.