Black script lettering reading a four-line rhyming poem across a person's upper back near the shoulder blade.

Four-line poem in script across the back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a black script poem tattooed across the upper back, set in four lines that step inwards from left to right. The lettering has fine, even linework with soft shading, and the skin is pale with visible texture. A pink wall with framed prints sits in the blurred background, and only a small part of an arm is visible at the top left.

Lettering Back Rose Text Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dave had walked nine miles to the dance at Haddley Mill with his poem folded in his waistcoat pocket, and by the time the fiddler struck up the third reel he had recited it to every goat in the lane. Roses are red, it began, which was true of Mrs Pim's garden and nobody in Haddley had ever argued the point. The trouble started on the second line, and by the fourth nobody was listening any more except the fiddler, who was waiting for the interval so he could have a drink.

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At the interval Dave found Ada Lowther by the water urn and handed her the paper. She read it twice, her lips moving. My name's Dave, she read aloud. Yes, said Dave. This poem makes no sense, she went on. That was rather the idea, said Dave, though he had not thought about it until then. And the last word? Ada asked. Dave had been saving that one since Michaelmas. Microwave, he said, and he said it with such pride that she laughed until she had to sit down on the bench by the coats.

The fiddler came back to the boards, the reel started again, and Dave found himself dancing with Ada, badly, with his elbows out and his boots squeaking on the chalk. They were married at Lammas. At the wedding breakfast he read the poem aloud once more, and Ada swore that this time it made perfect sense to her. Forty years later the paper was still in the waistcoat drawer, soft as cloth, and she would take it out on the first of every month to tell him he had never once been sensible, and that she had never once wanted him to be.