Bare back with a colour Japanese tattoo of a cherry blossom branch over the shoulder and upper back, and koi fish among grey pebbles on the lower back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cherry blossom and koi across a back

Japanese · Back · Colour · Photo

The tattoo covers the upper back and shoulder with a branch of red cherry blossom flowers, with a few petals drifting down the side. On the lower back, two koi fish in red, orange and gold swim among shaded grey pebbles. The linework is fine and the shading is soft, and the plain light background keeps the design the focus.

Japanese Botanical Back Cherry blossom Koi Fish Stone Petal Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ansel,

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Mother has taken to feeding the pond carp at dusk, which she says is the only work left for her hands now that you are gone. The orange one with the torn fin has grown fat on the crumbs, and the two big ones, the red and the gold, push the pebbles around the edge like they own the mill. You laid those stones yourself the summer before you left. Each spring they sink a finger's width deeper, and Father would have cursed you for not packing them with clay.

The cherry tree by the weir came into blossom three days after the carter brought your last letter. The petals came down on the water in a slow pink drift, and the carp rose to take them, thinking they were insects. I watched them for an hour. I know you will say it is foolish, but I think they were waiting for you the same way Mother is. When a branch lets go over the stones I do not sweep the petals away, because she says it brings bad luck to disturb them.

Every evening she sets a bowl of rice on the step by the gate, and every morning the bowl is empty. She says the carp came up the lane in the night to fetch it. I have stopped arguing with her about the foxes.

If you are not coming home, write and say so plainly, so I can stop counting the petals on the water. If you are, come before the last of them are gone.

Your sister, Lira