Close photograph of a solid black Leo zodiac symbol tattoo with a small shaded tuft at its tail, on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Leo zodiac symbol on the upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo is a bold black Leo zodiac symbol, drawn as a thick, smooth outline with a loop on the left and a long curved stroke running down to the right. A small shaded tuft at the lower right end of the stroke adds a little tonal variation, and the rest of the design is solid black ink. The photograph is taken straight on against plain, warm-toned skin, with the design filling most of the frame.

Back Zodiac symbol Lion Tail

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have been scoring loaves since four, and the flour on your forearms has dried to a grey crust that cracks when you bend your elbow. Dell left a note taped to the proving cabinet: Don't let the starter sulk. It has been sulking since Tuesday, a cloudy tub with a lid that never seals, and tonight it smells sharp enough to make your eyes water. You tip in rye and warm water, stir until your wrist aches, and wait for it to rise.

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Dell's grandfather, the story goes, scored every tin loaf with one long stroke that looped back on itself and finished in a flick, like a cat's tail lifting off a cold step. Nobody in the shop has ever managed it since. You try it on the first dough ball, a curl, a long downward pull, then the tail kicking out at the bottom. The blade drags. The tail tears into a ragged feather. You try again, and again, until the tray is full of almost-lions.

By half five the oven roars and the street outside is still black. You slide the tray in, shut the door, and count to nine hundred the way Dell taught you, lips moving, heat on your face. When you open it the crusts have blistered gold, and one loaf has a mane of ash-brown along its tail where the flame caught it.

At seven Mr Haddow from the flats opposite comes in, as he does every morning, for his cob. He turns the loaf over in his big hands and studies the curl on top. Then he tears the tail off first, the way you knew he would, and holds it out to you. Keep the best bit for yourself, he says, and you do.