Japanese style chrysanthemum tattoo in orange and grey shading covering a forearm, with wave shading above and small script on the wrist.

Chrysanthemum sleeve on a forearm

Japanese · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A large chrysanthemum fills the forearm, its petals outlined in black and shaded in orange and red with grey highlights. Dark grey wave shapes sit above it on the upper arm, and a small script word with a heart is inked near the wrist. The photo shows a bare torso and arm against a plain background, with a white waistband visible at the hip.

Japanese Forearm Upper arm Chrysanthemum Flower Wave Script Heart Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Her father had promised the sea a bowl of rice every autumn, and every autumn he forgot, so the sea came up the steps of Kessock Cove and took a net, a dog, and once a whole boat. Mae was nine the year she decided to pay the debt herself.

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She went down to the rocks at low water with a clay jar and a fistful of orange-red flower heads she had dried on the roof tiles. The chrysanthemums grew wild along the cliff path, thick as cabbages, and the old women said their petals were the sun folded small. She pressed them into the sand between the wave-cut ledges and said the words her grandmother used, the ones about keeping what was owed.

The tide turned. Grey water stood up in a long curl, then another, and the foam ran through the petals like fingers through hair. Mae stayed where she was until the jar was full of brine and the flowers had gone dark and soft. Nothing took her. The sea simply rolled back, leaving the ledges glossy and the chrysanthemums spread on the stone like a fan somebody had dropped.

Her father came down at dusk, looked at the wet flowers, and said nothing for a long while. Then he sat beside her and began to laugh, quietly at first, until he was wiping his eyes with his sleeve. Next morning he lit the stove, cooked the rice, and carried the bowl down to the water himself.