Two calves with tattoos: pink cherry blossom branches on the left leg with script lettering along the shin, and a grey realistic Buddha head with blossoms and waves on the right leg.

Cherry blossom and Buddha on both calves

Botanical · Calf · Mixed · Photo

The photograph shows two lower legs, each with a tattoo: a branch of pink cherry blossom with buds and leaves on the left leg, and a grey Buddha head with closed eyes, a dot on the forehead and wave shapes below it on the right leg. Script lettering runs down the left shin beneath the branch, and the right leg's Buddha is shaded with soft greys and fine linework. Pink and red blossoms contrast with the black and grey shading on a plain, light background.

Botanical Realism Lettering Calf Cherry blossom Branch Buddha Wave Script Flower

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last train to Carrick Road is forty minutes late, and you have counted the blossom on platform four twice. Petals skate across the wet concrete and collect against the bench legs as if someone swept them there on purpose. The stationmaster's cat has claimed your rucksack. Beyond the fence, a wireless in the goods yard murmurs a shipping forecast nobody is listening to.

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The parcel arrives on the trolley with a sodden label, and you sign for it because the porter is already walking away. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth and a tea towel printed with ferns, is a stone head no bigger than a grapefruit. Its eyes are shut. A small dark mark sits between the brows, and below the chin the carver has cut waves that lap up towards the ears, as though the head is rising out of the harbour. The sea has worn one cheek smooth. Your grandfather's handwriting on the tag says only: for Mrs Ebbe, by the signal box, when the tree flowers.

You know the tree. It leans over the signal box and has been coming into bloom all week, pink and loud against the grey sky. Mrs Ebbe died in February. Nobody told the tree.

When the train finally grinds in, you do not board it. You carry the head along the platform, past the ticket office and the lamp that never works, and set it on the sill of the signal box window, facing the tracks, where the blossom can reach it. The cat follows as far as the steps. The train pulls out without you, and for once you do not mind.