Colour tattoo of pink cherry blossom branches and a purple butterfly on the side of a torso, above the hip.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cherry blossom and butterfly on the ribs

Botanical · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A branch of pink cherry blossom flowers with dark grey stems curls up the side of the torso, with a purple butterfly in soft shading resting on the lower branches. The flowers use pink and magenta ink with black linework on the stems, while the butterfly has purple wings with lighter highlights. The design wraps around the flank and is framed by the skin of the midriff and the waistband of denim jeans.

Botanical Japanese Ribs Cherry blossom Butterfly Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ferryman at Haldane Bridge would take no coin for crossing the river in spring, only a branch cut from whatever tree was blooming on the far bank. Marit Oyelaran had learned this from her aunt, who had learned it from a man who sold thread in Lisbon, and so when the border guards stopped the cart at dusk she kept her hands still and said nothing about it.

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The guard was young and wanted the cart unloaded. Marit asked only that he mind the crate of pale cloth on top, because the moths inside it were not yet ready to fly. He lifted the lid anyway. Out came a single violet moth, and it did not go to the guard, nor to the lamp, but to the branch of blossom Marit had tucked under the tarpaulin that morning, the one she had cut from the orchard behind her mother's house.

The guard had seen many things at that crossing, and he knew better than to argue with a moth. He waved the cart through. The ferryman, when they reached the water, took the branch from her hand and counted the petals aloud, and each one he named was a year she would live without needing to lie to a man in a uniform.

She crossed with the moth on her wrist and the blossom in the oars, and when she looked back at the bank the guard was still standing with his lamp, watching the pink flowers drift out over the black water.