Black linework outline of peonies, daisies and leaves across a person's upper back and shoulder, with pink skin redness around the lines in a botanical style.

Floral outline across back and shoulder

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo covers the upper back and shoulder with a dense cluster of flowers, including a large peony, a daisy, smaller blossoms, buds and leaves. It is drawn in fine, even black outlines with no shading or fill visible, so it appears to be at the linework stage. The skin around the design is pink and reddened, and the composition follows the curve of the shoulder, with stems and small dots extending down the upper arm.

Botanical Fine line Back Shoulder Flower Peony Daisy Leaves Bud Blossom Dot Stem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marjorie, the peonies you divided in March have gone up like fists again, and I stood at the back fence this morning with the secateurs and could not bring myself to cut a single one. Your husband would have had them down by now, but he is in Hereford with his sister and the house is quiet enough to hear the bees working the lavender by the shed. I have been going through your seed tins at the kitchen table. Every one is labelled in that square capital hand, PEONY ROSE, FEVERFEW, OXEYE, ANEMONE BLUE, as if someone might come along and mix them up.

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The daisies came up in the bed under the window, the big ones with the yellow eyes that you swore were the wrong colour. They are the wrong colour, I told you so, and you laughed and said the wrong colour was the best part. I have left them where they are. The little white ones have seeded into the gravel path, and Mr Okafor from number nine says he will have them out with a hoe, but I have asked him to wait until the weekend, because I want to see whether they come back to the same spot next year, the way you said they would.

I found the drawing you did of the border the summer before the operation, folded inside the almanac. Every flower is outlined and nothing is coloured in. You wrote underneath, finish it when we have the time. So I have started. I bought a box of watercolours from the chemist on Bridge Street, the cheap sort, and I have painted the peony pink first, the way you would have, and it bled into the leaves like a bruise. I am leaving the blossoms white for now. It seems right that some of it should wait for you.

Love, as always, Eileen.