Black ink tattoo of two five-petal flowers, three butterflies and sweeping swirl lines across a person's upper back and shoulder blade, in a botanical style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Flowers and butterflies on a shoulder blade

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows two five-petal flowers, three butterflies and long curling swirls that sweep diagonally across the shoulder blade. The linework is dark and fairly even, with small dotted and scrolled detailing along the swirls and light shading inside the petals. The photograph has a warm, sepia-toned cast, and the design fills the frame from the upper left towards the lower right.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The frangipani flowered again on Tuesday, the first time in four years, and I stood in the glasshouse with the vents propped open and cried like a fool. You will say I always cry over plants. You are right, but this one had earned it. Pa cut the stem from a tree in Mauritius before the war and wrapped it in wet newspaper, and it sat in a jam jar on his windowsill for two seasons before it would root. Mum never believed it would live.

Mr Harrow from the forest cottages came up the lane on Sunday with a sack of nettles for his hens and stopped at the glass. He said the butterflies had been coming down through the beeches all week, pale ones and brown ones, settling on the wall where the old lime plaster has crumbled. I did not believe him until I went out and found three of them on the potting bench, opening and closing their wings as if counting.

The blooms came first, five petals each, waxy as candle wax, and the scent got into the lane so that the postman asked what I was baking. Then the stems began to throw out long curling shoots, reaching for the gap under the door as though they had heard of the sea. I have been pinching them back all week and they keep coming, sweeping out towards the orchard in loops, and I have decided to let them.

Come at the weekend. Bring the boys. I will leave the vent open and we will see whether the butterflies follow you home.

Love, Margaret

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