Black and grey spine design tattooed down the centre of a woman's back, seen from behind as she sits cross-legged on a bed.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Spine design down a woman's back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman seen from behind sits cross-legged on a white bed, wearing a white strappy bralette and denim shorts, with her hair up. A row of segmented, vertebra-like marks runs down the centre of her back, drawn in black ink with soft grey shading. The dark mandala tapestry behind her and the plain bedding keep the focus on the tattoo.

Back Spine Mandala Bed

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The Kittiwake came in on Tuesday with her ribs showing. Dad had Ellis from Blyth up on the slip before the tide turned, and we stood on the quay watching them peel back the planking to see what the storm had done. Sixteen frames, Ellis counted out loud, one cracked clean through like a bird's wing, but the keel itself was sound as bone. Dad put his hand flat on the timber and said that was the only part of a boat that ever mattered. The spine. Everything else is just clothes.

I have been thinking about that since. The men on the fleet all carry their own marks now. Jim Harker had a herring inked on his forearm after the winter he lost two boats, and the lads joke that the sea keeps a tally of you, one notch per trip, and you only learn the number when you stop.

Mum has finally let the brass compass down from the wheelhouse wall. She polished it on the kitchen table and the low sun came through the window and threw a star across the ceiling, the same shape as the medallion on her bedroom wall, the one she bought in Whitby when we were girls. She says the sea likes things that turn. I told her the sea likes things that hold, and she laughed and said we were both right.

Come home at Easter. Dad wants you on the new frame. He has left a gap in the middle of the keel for your name, and Ellis has promised to cut it neatly.

Love, Kate