Back view of a fine-line black script quote tattoo running vertically down the centre of the spine.

Script quote running down the spine

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A bare back shows a long, single line of cursive script tattooed vertically down the centre of the spine, with the text reading from top to bottom. The linework is thin and even in dark ink, with no shading or fill. The composition is a close, upright view of the back against a plain, softly lit background, with the head and face cropped out of frame.

Fine line Lettering Back Quote Script text Cursive

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The Dorrie Ann's mast had to be lettered before the spring tide, and Tom Keel was particular about the words. He had copied them onto the back of a tide table in his wife's handwriting, then handed it to me as though it might break. I stood on the ladder with a pot of gold leaf and read the sentence back to him twice, checking every syllable against the paper while the wind worried at my sleeves.

Keep reading

The line was too long to run across the spar, so I ran it straight down the centre of the mast, the way a plumb line hangs. Each letter had to stand upright on its own, with its neighbour a finger's width below, and I learned quickly that a word read downward is a different animal from one read across. The thin strokes kept catching the light. Tom stood at the foot of the mast with his hands in his coat and said nothing for an hour, which for Tom was a kind of praise.

When the paint was dry he asked whether the sea would wear it off. I told him the sea wears everything off eventually, but gold on a well-sealed spar lasts longer than most of us expect. He nodded at that as if I had given him a figure he could work with.

On the Thursday he sailed out on the morning ebb. From the harbour wall I watched the mast turn past the breakwater, the words going down it in a bright thread, and the Pryce boy beside me moved his lips as he read them aloud, one letter at a time, until the last word slipped out past the light.