Traditional style colour swallow tattoo on the back of a hand, with blue-grey wings, a red chest and orange accents.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swallow tattoo on the back of a hand

Traditional · Hand · Colour · Photo

A single swallow in flight, outlined in dark lines, is tattooed on the back of a hand. The bird has blue-grey wings and a red chest, with orange-yellow edging along the wings and a yellow beak. The hand rests on a dark leather surface and is shown in close view against a plain background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The first swallows came in over the harbour wall this morning while I was still scraping the trays, so I went out back and watched them skim the slipway. Three of them, low over the water, dipping after flies. I counted them the way you used to, out loud, until you told me I was putting them off.

The ovens are hot by four now. Mrs Penhallow has taken to bringing her own flour in a tin marked with her husband's initials, which I think is a kind of courtship, and I have decided not to say so. The bread is the same. Cob, split tin, the saffron buns on Fridays. Nobody asks where the other baker went. They just ask whether the crust is done.

I kept the blue enamel mug on the sill, the one with the chip. I know you said to throw it out, but the swallows seem to like that ledge, and every morning one lands on the rim and sits there looking at the sea as if it has business out there. I don't begrudge it. Some of us are only passing through and some of us are meant to stay put.

Write when the tide turns in your favour. Tell me which port. Tell me if the sea is kind. The loaf I'm setting to prove is the one you liked, with the seeds, and when the sun comes up I'll put one in the south window, in case the wind is taking you home.

Love, Ma

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