Colour realism tattoo of overlapping autumn maple leaves in red, orange and yellow across the elbow.

Autumn maple leaves over an elbow

Realism · Other · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows two overlapping maple leaves with pointed lobes and visible veins, drawn across the point of the elbow. The leaves are shaded with soft gradients from yellow-green to deep red, with darker outlines on the edges and veins. The leaves fill most of the frame against a plain grey top and a pale yellow-green wall.

Realism Botanical Other Maple leaf Autumn leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The maple by the lock gates has gone the colour of a fox's back, and Mother has stopped pretending she isn't watching it from the kitchen window. I'm pressing one of the leaves between the pages of this letter because you always said nothing in Ontario could beat our autumns, and I want you to tell me I'm wrong.

The tree was planted the year you left, when Dad dug the hole with the spade that is now rusting against the shed wall. Every October since, the leaves have turned from green to yellow to red, lower branches first, and this year the wind stripped the top half before the bottom had finished. Mrs Okafor from number nine says the council wants it cut down for the new car park.

I went down with the secateurs yesterday meaning to take a cutting for you. Instead I sat under it for an hour with a flask of tea, watching two leaves on the same twig, one already the colour of rust and one still turning, overlapping as though someone had argued them into sharing. Then a wind came off the river and I had to hold my cup in both hands.

So I didn't cut it. If this leaf arrives in one piece, you'll know the tree is still standing. Write back and tell me the maples over there are better. I'll believe you, but only if you send a photograph.

Your loving sister, Margaret