Black and grey tree tattoo with a full canopy of leaves and gnarled roots, placed on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tree tattoo on the side of the ribs

Botanical · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A tree with a full, branching canopy of leaves and a thick, twisted trunk that spreads into exposed roots at the base. The design uses dark black linework with shaded areas on the trunk and roots, and the leaves are outlined and partly filled. The tree is set against bare skin, with the figure rising diagonally across the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The men from the council came on Tuesday with their clipboards and their yellow hats, and they stood in the lane looking up at the old wych elm as if it had insulted their mothers. Mrs Pargeter's roots have cracked the wall of number nine, they said. It has to come down before the autumn gales. I told them the tree was here before the wall, and before the lane had a name, and they wrote something down and didn't look at me.

Dad would have sent them packing with a flask of tea and a sharp word. I tried the tea. It did no good. So on Wednesday I went out with the secateurs and started on the lower branches myself, which was madness, but I wanted to be the one who knew what was being lost. The bark on the trunk twists like a rope someone has wrung out, and when I knelt to look at the roots they spread across the grass in long grey fingers, gripping the earth harder than the council ever managed.

I found the initials there, cut deep on the north side, J.P. and M.P., with a heart that has grown over into a knot. You'll remember Mum sitting under it with her sewing basket and her feet up on the wall. I stood there a long while with sap on my hands and the afternoon going gold through the leaves.

They're coming back Friday with a saw. I've decided I'll sit under it with a flask, and if they want the tree they'll have to ask me to get up first.

Love, Ruth

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