Black and grey fine line tattoo of an animal skull with antlers, poppies, roses and lavender on the outer thigh.

Animal skull and flowers on a thigh

Botanical · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A large tattoo shows an animal skull with antlers at the centre, framed by poppies, roses, lavender sprigs and wheat stalks. The linework is fine and detailed, with shading and stippled dots that give the petals and bone depth. The piece is entirely black and grey and spreads across the upper outer thigh, with a dark garment visible at the top edge of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mags,

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I found the skull again on Sunday, the one we buried under the wheat stubble behind your dad's barn the summer we were fourteen. The antlers had gone grey and the rain had softened the bone to something like chalk, but the poppies Pete scattered over it had seeded themselves along the ditch, red as ever, and I stood there longer than I meant to.

The reunion was at the Swan on Saturday, and nobody placed me until I mentioned the lane. Then Gavin Hollis, who still has the same laugh, told everyone about the time we dug a grave for a roe deer and Mr Ashby made us dig it up again for the biology lesson. Everyone laughed. You didn't. I watched you turn your glass round and round on the beer mat.

You asked whether I'd kept the jaw. I hadn't. I'd kept the lavender from the bunch your nan hung in the back kitchen, dried and tied with string, and it's on my windowsill now, which is a daft thing to admit to someone I haven't seen in twenty-six years. Come up to the cottage in June. The poppies will be out and the wheat will be high, and we can dig the rest of it up together, if you still want to.

Bring a trowel. Don't bring Gavin.

Love, Liz

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