Fine line black tattoo of a small sprig with a star-tipped stem on the upper chest below the collarbone, with a small key tattoo on a finger.

Small sprig tattoo near the collarbone

Fine line · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A small fine line tattoo of a thin sprig with a star-shaped tip sits on the upper chest below the collarbone, drawn in single black lines with a few crossing strokes. A second tiny outline key tattoo is visible on one finger of the hand holding the white top. The plain white wall and soft natural light keep the focus on the skin and the small designs.

Fine line Chest Hand Sprig Branch Star Key

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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

Sit down, sit down, the kettle's only just gone off and I'll not have you standing in my hall dripping on the runner. You'll want to know about the key. Everyone does. It's the one for number seven, the room at the top where the gull sits on the sill. My father hung it on a nail behind the scullery door the winter the boats stopped coming in, and he never once let it out of his pocket after that.

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He kept a sprig of rosemary in his waistcoat too, dried and thin as a bootlace, with one little white star flower still clinging to the end. Mother said it came off the bush by the chapel wall. He said it came off a sailor's grave, which was nonsense, but he liked the look on her face when he said it. Every Sunday he'd take it out, turn it in the light from the window and say the same thing, that a thing kept small is a thing that can be carried.

Then the March gale took the roof off the east wing, and the lodgers went out into the rain in their nightclothes. The only things my father went back for were that key and that sprig. We found them on the stairs the next morning, side by side, as if he'd set them down to free his hands for the children.

So when you ask why the attic door stays locked, I tell you it isn't the rooms it's guarding. It's the small things a man can't bear to leave behind. Mind the third stair on your way up. It creaks like a widow at a wedding.