Black and grey botanical tattoo of lilies and leaves trailing down the side of a torso, with a navel piercing visible.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lily and vine tattoo on the side

Botanical · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A photograph of two lily flowers with a vine of leaves and stems running down the side of the torso, with a second lily at the top of the frame. The linework is fine and the petals are softly shaded in grey, with dark speckling on the central lily. The image is taken at an angle in warm indoor light, and the background is a plain wall with some indistinct objects.

Botanical Ribs Lily Flower Leaves Vine Stem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The boat from Penzance is late again, so you walk the lane between the glasshouses with the wind at your back, counting the bulbs Mrs Tremayne left you when her hip went. You know the lilies by their leaves now. The orange ones with freckled throats are what the mainland florists ask for, and the speckled centre blooms always sell first.

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Dolly from the shop rings the gate bell and says a man wants a dozen stems for a wedding on Tresco, but only if they are white. You tell her the white ones are finished. The vine on the north wall has been going wild since March, pushing runners through the cracked panes and wrapping itself around the old fuchsia until you can barely tell which plant is which. You cut a long trailing stem and hold it up to the grey sky, and the light comes through the leaves the way it comes through ink on wet paper.

That evening you bring a single open lily into the kitchen and stand it in a jar of tap water. It sheds pollen across the scrubbed table, staining the grain rust-brown. You mean to wipe it up and don't. Out on the water the ferry sounds its horn, and you realise you have not once thought about the boat being late.

You rub the orange dust between your finger and thumb until it blurs, then turn the jar so the freckled throat faces the window, where anyone coming up the lane can see it.