Black and grey botanical tattoo on an upper arm and shoulder, showing an ornate lace-style flower with dangling chains, a smaller flower below and a feather near the elbow.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lace flower and feather on upper arm

Botanical · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A large ornate flower with a lace-like pattern sits on the shoulder and upper arm, with fine chains and dangling drops hanging down to a smaller flower with a central dot. A feather with shaded barbs sits lower down near the elbow. The work is rendered in black ink and grey shading on a light skin tone, with a dark background behind the arm.

Botanical Shoulder Upper arm Flower Lace Chain Feather Mandala Drop

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last show of Pegram's Travelling Wonders went up on a Tuesday, in a field outside Doncaster that the farmer had promised us for three nights and charged us for four. Mam had spent the winter stitching lace onto the ring curtains, because the sequins had gone to pay for diesel and the velvet had faded to the colour of weak tea. I helped her with the last of it at the kitchen table of our caravan, my fingers stained blue from the thread dye.

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On the final night the crew hauled the trapeze up for the last time. Dad had checked every link himself, the long chains that hung from the centre pole with fine brass drops strung along them, each one ringing faintly when the wind caught the canvas. He said they would outlast the tent, and they probably would. A feather came loose from Marisol's headdress during the second act, the way they always did, and it drifted down past the rafters and settled on my shoulder as if it had been looking for me.

After the crowd had gone, rain came through a tear in the roof and ran down the chains in beads. Each drop gathered at the lowest link, hung there trembling, then fell and struck the sawdust, and the dark marks spread into a pattern, round and open, like the lace Mam had been sewing all winter. I stood under it with the feather in my fist while the men argued over the price of scrap steel.

Dad sold the chains in the morning for more than the company had earned all year. I kept the feather. Mam kept the last length of lace, folded in tissue paper, and every hard rain since has come down in that same pattern on whatever ground I happen to be standing on.