Black and grey rose tattoo with leaves and shading covering the inner forearm, resting on striped bedding with a knitted cuff at the wrist.

Black and grey roses on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A large cluster of roses with bold outlines and soft grey shading covers the forearm, with dark leaves at the top and a second bloom partly visible below. The linework is clean and the shading gives the petals depth. The photo is taken at an angle on striped bedding, with a white knitted sleeve covering the hand.

Traditional Botanical Forearm Rose Leaf Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marguerite, the rose cuttings you wrapped in damp sacking for me came through the crossing better than I did. Three of the six are still green at the nodes, and the cook has agreed to keep them in the lee of the galley stove as long as I keep the bilge pump honest. I tell you this so you know I am still thinking of the garden, though the sea has been trying hard to make me think of nothing but my stomach.

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We made Cape Verde on the ninth day. The harbourmaster there, a man with a moustache like a broom, took one look at the sacking and asked if I meant to sell the roses or smuggle them. I told him both, and he laughed and let us through. The island smelled of woodsmoke and something sweet I could not name, and I thought of your kitchen window on a August morning, when the whole lane smells of cut grass and the sweet peas are going over.

You will want to know whether I have kept the promise. I have. The sleeve of my good coat is pinned back, and under the cloth I have marked the first bloom in ink, a pale open rose with its outer petals curling like the edges of a letter. The man in Liverpool who did it said the roses on a forearm always heal best when the wearer keeps them out of the sun, so I am sitting in the shade of the foresail while I write this. Give Father my regards and tell him the second crop is yours to pick. I will be home before the first frost, with the three cuttings alive and the rest of me, I hope, in one piece.