Black and grey botanical tattoo of California poppies, buds and feathery leaves on the upper arm of a person in a black top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

California poppies on an upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of California poppies, with open blooms, closed buds and feathery leaves on a single stem, covers the upper arm. The linework is fine and precise, with hatched shading in the petals and leaves. The arm is shown in profile against a brick wall, with the tattoo as the clear focus of the frame.

Botanical Fine line Upper arm Poppy Flower Bud Leaves Stem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada, the poppies came up the week after the rains, the way the ranch hands said they would, though none of them would say when that was. I have walked the ridge every morning since with my hat in my hand, like a fool at a funeral, counting. The open ones face the sun and turn their cups to follow it across the sky. The closed buds stay shut on their stalks until the heat finds them, and then they split all at once, as if someone had called their names.

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I cut you a stem with three blooms and a bud and laid it between the pages of the survey book. The leaves are feathery, like fennel, and they darken at the edges where the frost bit them in March. By the time you read this the paper will have gone the colour of weak tea, but I think the shape will hold. Mr Dunmore wants the ridge for his dam. He showed me the plans over supper, a long roll of linen spread across the table with the salt cellar holding down one corner, and the water line runs straight through the middle of the field where the poppies are thickest.

I have marked the flowers on his map in pencil, a small sun drawn over every bloom, so the engineers will have to route the pipe the long way round. I doubt they will thank me. Mr Dunmore only tapped the map and said the valley had plenty of poppies. I did not tell him that a poppy is only ever in one place, and that once the water comes up the ridge there will be nothing left for a man to count.

I have kept one of the buds closed in an envelope for you. It is no bigger than a pea and stubborn as a locked door. Hold it in your palm for a while before you open the flap. The warmth should wake it, and then you will see the colour I have been trying to describe to you for three pages.