Small colour botanical tattoos of cacti, orange blooms, a thistle and a black butterfly spread across a woman's upper chest.

Cacti and flowers across the chest

Botanical · Chest · Colour · Photo

Six small motifs are scattered across the upper chest: two flowering cacti, a tall saguaro-style cactus, a round barrel cactus, a pink thistle and a sprig of orange poppies with a black butterfly. The linework is fine and the shading is soft, giving the pieces a painted, watercolour-like finish. Colour ink dominates, with greens, browns, oranges and pinks against pale skin, and the motifs are spaced loosely around the collarbone area.

Botanical Fine line Chest Cactus Flower Thistle Poppy Butterfly Succulent Blossom

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ines,

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The crate from Greenhouse Nine arrived this morning with the lid nailed shut and a note from the dust inspectors saying the seals had been broken twice in transit. Inside, wrapped in damp newsprint, were the cuttings you asked me to hold for you: three saguaro sticks no thicker than pencils, a barrel cactus the size of a plum, and a little bundle of poppy seed in a twist of foil. Mr Okonedo swore the thistle had died on the way up from the lowlands, but when I scraped its stem it was still green underneath, stubborn as ever.

I put them on the south sill of the seed room, where the glass catches the first hour of the red sun. The night shift laughed at me for talking to them, but I repeated what you told me our first summer posted here: a plant only has to be right once in the ground, and the rest of its life is paperwork. The poppies opened on the third morning. Four petals, the colour of marmalade, and a black moth sat on the rim of the pot as if it had been waiting for an invitation.

The barrel cactus has not flowered yet, and I know you will ask. It sulks in the cold. But the flowering cactus from the first box has put out a bud the size of my thumbnail, and I have photographed it for the ledger, because nobody on the orbital believes a desert can bloom until they see it written down.

Come home when your contract ends. Bring the rest of your cuttings. I will keep the south sill clear for you.

Love, Marisol