Black and grey realism tattoo of a soaring eagle with spread wings across the side of a ribcage.

Soaring eagle on the ribs

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A large eagle in flight is shown with wings fully spread, head turned to the right and tail feathers fanned out. The shading is smooth and detailed, with soft grey gradients across the feathers and crisp darker edges on the wing tips. The bird fills a diagonal across the skin, with plain pale skin behind it and a hand holding fabric at the right edge.

Realism Ribs Eagle Bird Wing Feather Flight

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Joe, The eagle came back over the spoil heap this morning, the big one with the pale patch on its tail that Mr Pritchard swears is only a kite. It rode the warm air off the heap for near an hour without one flap, wings out flat as a barn door, and every time it tipped I thought of you at the face with the props creaking over your head.

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Mam has stopped asking the men at the lamp room when the cage will come up. She sits by the range with your boots on the rug, which I have told her is daft. The rescue crew is three days into the east drift and Mr Harker says the air is good where they have got through, so we keep the kettle warm and the chapel door on the latch.

Yesterday I walked up Rake Lane to see where the bird perches, and found a feather on the stile instead, longer than my hand, grey at the root and black at the tip. I have tucked it into the Bible at Ruth, where you used to hide your tobacco tin. I know you would laugh at that.

This morning it came over again, slow, turning its head to look down at the pit wheel as if it were counting us. Then it went off west towards the Brecon hills, where there is nothing but sheep and sky, and I stood at the gate until I could not see it any more. Come home with that same easy way of walking, and bring the other feathers back to me, or keep them if you must. Your loving sister, Ada.