Black and grey lily with a trail of stars and swirling lines on the side of the ribs, shaded in grey.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lily and stars trail on the side ribs

Botanical · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A large lily flower with shaded petals and fine stamen detail sits at the top of the design, with small stars scattered around it. A trail of larger outlined stars and curling lines sweeps down and across the side of the torso. The work is in black and grey, with soft shading on the petals and clean linework on the stars and swirls.

Botanical Ribs Lily Flower Star Swirl Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bakery on Canal Row opens its shutters at half past three, and by the time you have the first loaves in the deck oven the sky over the car park is still dark enough to show stars. Dell, who owns the place, has left you the keys and a list pinned to the flour bin in capitals: FOUR DOZEN LILY CAKES FOR ST AGNES, NO SPARE ICING ON THE TRAY.

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You pipe the lilies one at a time, six petals each, a dot of yellow at the centre, and between them you keep glancing up at the skylight. The small stars are going out in order, the faint ones first, the way lamps go off along a street. The stamens are the fiddly part. You work each one with a cocktail stick until it stands up straight, and you do not look at the clock.

At ten to five Tomasz from the flower shop next door knocks with a crate of real lilies, still in bud, wrapped in damp newspaper. The bride's mother wants the real thing on the cake as well, he says, grinning, and he is gone before you can argue. You strip the buds open with your thumbs, and the scent fills the room so thickly that the proving dough seems to rise faster.

By six the grey has turned to pink above the chimneys, and the last star slips behind the flue. You set the finished cake on the rack, its piped lily perfect and sugar-dry. Beside it the real lilies have opened in the warmth, pale and a little crooked, leaning towards the window as if they had been waiting for the light. You leave the iced one where the sun will reach it first, and go to see to the bread.