Black linework leafy branch tattoo running across the back of both hands, with small dot tattoos and a heart on the fingers, in botanical style.

Leafy branch across the knuckles of both hands

Botanical · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

Two hands are shown palm down with a continuous branch of outlined leaves tattooed across the knuckles of each hand, mirrored left to right. Small dot tattoos sit above the knuckles, and a small geometric design and a heart appear on individual fingers. The ink is black with clean, uniform outlines and no shading, set against pale skin and dark clothing, with gold rings worn on several fingers.

Botanical Hand Leaves Branch Dot Heart

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The tube came through my lane at twenty past four, rolled in a tea towel and taped at both ends, and the declaration said only 'gift, personal'. I had been on the desk long enough to know that personal usually meant something that would die in the back of a van. I slit the tape with the blade I keep for sealed pallets.

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Inside was a single cutting of bay, nine inches or so, leaves still glossy, wrapped in newspaper gone soft with water. Someone had written on the paper in pencil: Sow it where the wind comes off the sea. No name. The leaves ran in matched pairs along one stem, each pair turned slightly toward the one above, and under the lamp they looked like a line of small boats going out in company.

Procedure said bin it, or send it for fumigation and a form that would take a fortnight to come back. My supervisor, Tomas, leaned over my shoulder and said, 'Just call it a broom handle.' I said no. I said I would rather have the paperwork, and I think he was relieved, because he went back to his coffee and left me to it.

I stamped the declaration REFUSED, then wrote underneath in my own hand the name of the village on the coast the newspaper had been posted from, and a line asking the postal office to take care of it. I wrapped the cutting again, leaves first, and sent it back the way it had come.