Close photo of a small bow tattoo with a black outline and coral fill on the lower abdomen, above pink lace-trimmed underwear.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bow tattoo on the lower abdomen

Other · Mixed · Photo

A small bow with a bold black outline, a coral fill and a round centre knot sits on the lower abdomen. The linework is thick and even, and the colour is flat with no visible shading. The tight crop shows the tattoo above a pink and white striped waistband, with the rest of the body out of frame.

Other Bow Ribbon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Ardeth had tied the first bow on the hazel by the stile the autumn her husband's boat did not come in. It was coral ribbon, cut from a remnant she had bought at the market in Lydd, and she knotted it with two loops that sat up like a moth. The village children took it for a marker for the path to the mill. By November there were eleven of them, all coral, all tied at the height a small hand could reach, and nobody asked her why.

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Edith Pell, who kept the shop at the crossroads, said the bows were a nuisance to the sheep. The forester said the wood was too damp for ribbon and it would only rot. Still, every Sunday Mrs Ardeth walked the edge of the trees with a tin of pins and a fresh length of coral, and replaced the ones gone grey.

The spring the mill wheel stopped turning, a boy called Tom Greave came out of the beeches with his shoes full of mud and nothing else to show for three days. He followed the bows back to the stile as though they were lanterns. Mrs Ardeth was waiting with a cup of tea and said nothing about where he had been.

Afterwards she untied the last bow from the hazel and knotted it round his wrist. He wore it to school until the coral faded to the pale pink of a shell, and the other children stopped asking what it was for.