Black Polynesian style tribal tattoo with triangles, swirls, flowers and a bird motif curving across the ribs, with a hand resting on the skin above it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Polynesian style tribal band on ribs

Blackwork · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A hand with pink nails and a silver ring rests on the skin above a long black tribal band that sweeps across the side of the torso. The band includes solid triangles, curling swirls, a cluster of flower shapes and a bird motif, all in bold black ink. The tattoo is shown in soft, even light against plain skin, with the band curving from the upper left toward the lower right of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

Keep reading

We raised the atoll before dawn, the swell running under us in long grey ridges, and Tavita took the wheel without a word, the way he does when the water is talking to him. He says you can read a sea by its teeth. Those short sharp peaks along the edge of a swell, he calls them the reef's own handwriting. I told him the sea had no handwriting, and he laughed, traced a row of points on the chart with his thumb, and said his grandmother taught him to tell a squall from a fair wind by the shape of the crests.

Three days out, the frigate birds came over the stern, forked tails cut into the blue like scissors. Tavita whistled and one dropped low enough to skim the rail. He told me the birds sleep on the wing and only come down when they have found something worth the trip, which seems a fair way to run a life. Then he pointed to the five-petalled flowers drawn on the chart, pressed in a ring, and said that where those grow there is always fresh water under the sand, if you dig in the right place.

Last night he gave me his old brass dividers and a chart with a thumbprint of ink in the corner. He is staying on at the atoll with his cousins. The mate says the schooner will need a new hand for the run back to Falmouth, and I am to take the post. I did not say yes. I said I would think on it, and he looked pleased, as if he had known all along.

This morning the sea was flat as a plate and a single bird was riding our wake. I will write again from Papeete. Tell Mam the frigate birds are not so cruel as they look.

Love, Ellie

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