Black tribal-style swallow tattoo on the upper chest near the collarbone, with swirling tail lines extending onto the shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal swallow on the upper chest

Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A bold black swallow in a tribal style sits on the upper chest, its wings and tail formed from thick tapering strokes and curled swirls. Another sweeping tribal line runs out over the shoulder on the left of the frame. The ink is solid black against pale skin, with a fine chain necklace and a gold triangular pendant visible at the right edge.

Chest Shoulder Swallow Bird Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas, the swallows came back to the refuge on Tuesday, four days earlier than your mother said they would, and I took it as a sign that the pass would open for you this year. They have built again under the eaves above the water trough, the same mud cups as last summer, and the pair who own them dive at my head every time I carry the milk in from the lower pen.

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Their tails are forked like the blades of a pair of shears, and when they bank over the scree they trail those long dark streaks that the old shepherds called the wind's own handwriting. Your grandfather used to read them the way other men read the newspaper. He said a swallow flying low before rain meant the cart road would turn to soup by morning, and a swallow that flew high meant someone was coming up the valley with news he would not want.

On Wednesday a man came up in a grey coat with a letter buttoned into his breast pocket, and the birds went up so high I lost them against the cloud. I did not wait to read the letter first. I put the kettle on and watched the empty sky until the thunder came over the ridge, and only then did I open it.

It was from you. You are coming up before the snow, and the swallows knew it before the post did.