Black outline tattoo of California poppies with stems and fern-like foliage on a woman's upper back, near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

California poppies across upper back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows three poppy flowers and a bud on long, thin stems, with sprigs of feathery foliage at the base. The design is drawn in black outline with little shading, so the petals appear as open white areas on the skin. The photograph is taken from behind, with the tattoo running diagonally down the shoulder blade area against a pale green top and bra strap.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ivy,

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The poppies came off the lorry at Carlisle in a crate that smelt of wet straw, and I swear half of them were already trying to open. The fair has been stuck on the Cumbrian road since Tuesday, so Mr Okonedo has us selling tea from the back of the dodgem van while the rain comes sideways off the fells. Nobody wants a paper cup of tea when there are orange poppies on the stall, but nobody wants to pay for them either.

Ruth, who runs the booth beside the waltzer, drew the whole display on the canvas in black pen before the weather got to it. Outlines only, because the paint ran out in Penrith. Three flowers and a bud on long, thin stalks, with feathery leaves down near the roots, and the petals left bare where the card shows through. She says the white is the best part, that you have to trust the people looking to fill the colour in themselves.

On Friday a man in a wax jacket stood in front of the drawing for a long time, then bought the last bud for a pound. He asked whether the poppies grew wild anywhere round here. I told him they came from California, which is nowhere near Cumbria, and he laughed and said that was exactly why he wanted one.

Come and see it before the caravans go on Monday. Bring a pencil if you have one. I think the stall needs another flower, and I'd like you to draw it.

Love, Mae

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