Black and grey floral tattoo with roses and leaves across the shoulder and upper arm, with a rose on the upper arm and a darker forearm piece below.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Floral tattoos on shoulder and upper arm

Botanical · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A woman in a white lace dress sits with her arms visible, showing several tattoos. The left shoulder and upper arm carry a black and grey floral design of leaves and stems, and the right upper arm has a shaded rose. A darker tattoo is visible on the forearm, and the photograph is warmly lit with the subject cropped below the neck.

Botanical Shoulder Upper arm Forearm Rose Flower Leaves Vine Floral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The rose by the coal shed has finally come through the wall. Your grandfather would have had words about it, the way he had words about everything that grew without asking him first. I stood on the upturned bucket this morning with the secateurs in one hand and a mug of tea going cold on the step, and I counted seventeen new shoots running along the top of the fence as if they had somewhere to be.

I did what he taught me and took the old wood out first, the grey canes gone brittle as biscuit. Under the bark the new growth was green, but at the base of each cane there was a leaf the colour of wet slate, veined so finely you could hardly see it without the magnifying glass from the kitchen drawer. I kept finding them. Every time I thought I was done, another leaf came up out of the dark, and then a bloom, shaded from the middle outwards like someone had rubbed charcoal into the petals with their thumb.

Half the street was out with their bins, so I had an audience, and Mrs Okonedo from number nine asked whether the roses were dying. I said no, they were only changing their clothes. She didn't laugh, which I suppose is fair, but she did bring round a jar of marmalade after, and I have put it on the windowsill where the light comes through the orange.

I've tied the longest cane to the wire with string I found in your grandfather's coat. Come up at the end of the month and see it. I'd like you to take a cutting home. Bring a clean pot and don't tell your mother I said so.

Love, Auntie Vi