Black and grey daffodil tattoo with shaded petals and long leaves on the side of a torso, near the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Daffodil cluster on the side ribs

Botanical · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A cluster of four daffodils, one in bud, sits on the side of the torso and sweeps down towards the hip, with long shaded leaves trailing beneath. The flowers use bold outlines with fine hatching and soft grey shading in the trumpets and petals. The tattoo is in black and grey only, set against smooth skin and a black garment at the top edge of the frame.

Botanical Ribs Daffodil Flower Leaf Bud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the daffodils came up at Sallow Lock the week after you left, all at once, the way they do when nobody is watching. Mrs Pennock swore she had planted them in October, but I saw her tip the bulbs out of a biscuit tin into the mud by the gate paddles in February, wearing her gardening gloves on the wrong hands and telling the heron to mind its business.

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We have moved on since. The boat is slow in the cold, and the leaves lie along the towpath like long grey ribbons, darker where the water has got into them. I keep thinking about the one still in bud, the green sleeve of it stubborn on its stalk for a fortnight after the others had opened. Dad would have called it sulking. He called most things sulking, including the kettle.

Last Thursday I tied up under the bridge at Coldharbour and went back for the tin, the one with the cracked lid and your initials scratched on the bottom. Three bulbs were left, rattling like dice. I pushed them into the bare ledge beside the lock where nobody has ever planted anything, and I pressed the mud down with my thumbs until my nails were black. The lock keeper watched me from his window and didn't say a word, which in these parts is practically a blessing.

By the time you read this they will either be up or they won't. Either way, come in spring. Bring the ridiculous hat, and we will see which of us is sulking.