Black ink tattoo on a forearm of swallows flying above two perched birds on a leafy branch, with the word love in script lettering below.

Swallows and the word love on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink tattoo on the forearm shows several swallows in flight rising towards two birds perched on a branch with leaves. The word love is written in flowing script lettering that runs down the arm, joined to the branch by a curved stem. The work is solid black with no greys or colour, and the design sits centrally on the skin against a dark background.

Lettering Botanical Forearm Swallow Bird Leaves Branch Love Script Silhouette

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dora had counted the swallows twice before she said anything, which was how I knew the news was bad. Eleven of them had lifted off the wire above Bramley Lock and were climbing in that loose, scattered way they have when the wind goes round to the south. 'Early,' she said. 'They always wait for the hawthorn to finish. This year they haven't waited.'

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I went up onto the roof with the tea towel still over my shoulder and looked at the tree on the far bank. Two birds sat on the lowest branch among the last leaves, close enough that their shadows touched on the bark. They hadn't moved all morning. Dora had painted the word on the cabin side in April, the spring the river came over the towpath and the lock-keeper's cottage stood in water to the sills. She'd done it in the curling hand her mother used on wedding cards, so the letters ran into one another like a stem bending under weight.

'They're not going,' I said.

'No. They never were. Somebody has to stay with the branch.'

The swallows wheeled once over the cut, dark against a pewter sky, then went on past the church tower toward the coast.

I untied the stern rope and let it slap into the water. Dora kept one hand flat on the painted word as we slid out past the reeds, and she didn't look back at the tree. We would come through Bramley again in the spring, and those two would still be there, small and black against the green, waiting for the thorn to flower.