Black and grey dragonfly tattoo with patterned wings and scrolling swirls across the upper back.

Dragonfly with swirls on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large dragonfly sits centrally on the upper back, with four wings decorated by eye-like motifs, veined lines and small curls. Below the body, the tail fades into paisley-style scrolls, droplet shapes and dotted ornament, while swirls rise above the head. The work uses bold outlines with soft grey shading on a warm-toned skin background.

Back Dragonfly Wing Swirl Paisley Ornament Insect

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Idris, the Palais roof has started dripping again above the cloakroom, so Mrs Pryce has put her good biscuit tin under it, and every drip now lands on the same floorboard with a sound like a clock. I thought you'd want to know the hall has not changed while you've been gone, except for the dragonfly.

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You'll remember Teddy Vance painted it across the ceiling the summer before the war, all those veined wings with their little painted eyes, and the tail trailing down into the cornice in curls like the paisley shawl your mother wore to chapel. Nobody liked it much. Mr Hollis said it looked like a moth that had been to a fair. Last week I went up the ladder with the decorators and found someone had gone over the left forewing in gold leaf, a single eye, and beneath it, very small, a date and two initials I didn't recognise.

Mrs Pryce says it was Teddy himself, sneaking back in the night before he shipped out again, and I believe her. The lamp hangs from the dragonfly's body on a chain that swings whenever the band stamps its feet, and each time it swings the gold eye catches the light and seems to look down at the floor where we dance.

So come home. The tin is nearly full, the band is terrible, and the wings are waiting to see who you'll dance with first. Yours, Margaret.