Black and grey shaded rose tattoo with leaves on the shoulder, with a hand resting against the arm.

Black and grey roses on a shoulder

Botanical · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A large rose sits in front of a smaller rose, with leaves and a bud spreading across the shoulder and upper arm. The petals are outlined in dark lines and shaded in greys, giving the blooms a layered, dimensional look. The photo is taken at an angle, with a hand holding the arm and grey fabric in the background.

Botanical Traditional Shoulder Rose Leaves Bud Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hettie Marsh took the barrow down to the old wall in late August because the roses there had gone wild and the hips were splitting on the stems. Two bushes grew against the stones, so tangled after forty years that the gardener had given up trying to tell them apart. Her grandmother had planted the first for a husband who never came back from the fen. The second had been put in by a neighbour's boy the spring before he was sent away to the war, and he had not come back either.

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She cut the dead wood with the billhook and worked slowly toward the crevice where the bricks had sprung. Behind a bundle of brittle canes she found a tin wrapped in oilcloth, and inside it a folded paper with no name on the outside. The writing was faded but she could read it: Keep the big bloom for the one who stays. Let the small one go to whoever comes after, and let it be quiet.

Hettie sat on the upturned barrow for a long while with the paper in her lap. The light went yellow over the stubble and a wood pigeon worked its way along the hedge. Then she tucked the note back into its tin, pressed the lid down, and set it in the crevice with a brick across the top. She cut only the roses that were already spent, and left the rest, so the small bush could drop its hips in peace. Pushing the empty barrow up the lane, she did not look back at the wall, but she knew which bloom had the most petals, and she knew it would still be there next year.