Black botanical tree with roots and branches tattooed across a woman's bare back, photographed from behind with her hands raised to her hair.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tree and roots across a back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large tree is tattooed down the centre of a bare back, with a dark trunk along the spine and branches spreading over the shoulders and shoulder blades. The roots fan out towards the lower back, with fine twiggy linework and areas of soft shading that give the branches depth. The ink is almost entirely dark grey and black, set against a blurred garden background outdoors.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Dad,

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The willow at Hollin Lock came down in the flood, the one you always tied the mooring line to. Mum rang the lock-keeper, who says the roots had been working loose in the bank for years and the river simply took what it had been waiting for. I walked out on Tuesday to look at it. The root plate stood higher than the gate, a whole floor of grey wood and clay, with fine threads reaching down into the mud like the veins on the back of your hand.

Roots in the water tell you things, you always said, and I never believed you. But I counted the rings on a cut branch the lock-keeper gave me, and there were seventy-one, which means it was planted the year you first took the Sea Lark through the cut. Every tree the boatmen ever trusted was probably put in by someone who didn't live to see it shade the towpath.

I've taken the lamp off the stern and hung it in the cabin, and I've put the rope you knotted on the hook by the door. The barge is still moored where you left her. Come home when the water drops and bring your saw. We'll cut the stump square and push a whip of willow into the same hole, and I'll be the one who keeps the line tied.

Love, Nell

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