Black ink mandala tattoo on a woman's shoulder, with dotwork and geometric detail, beside a long braid over a dark top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mandala tattoo on the shoulder

Dotwork · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A close crop shows a symmetrical mandala tattoo on the upper shoulder, close to the collarbone. The design is built from layered petals, concentric rings, fine lines and small dots in solid black ink. The dark top and loose braid frame the tattoo against the pale skin.

Dotwork Geometric Shoulder Mandala Floral pattern Dot Braid

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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

Dear Nell, The circle bed is finally looking like what Dad wanted, though you'd never guess from the back step. He pegged string to the old sundial the spring after you left and walked the radius with a bag of lime on his shoulder, muttering about the neighbours' cat. Six rings of grey stones, eight petals of lavender edged in box, and in the outermost ring he set pale pebbles one by one, a hand's width apart. From the landing window it looks like someone spilled sugar in a perfect ring.

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He wouldn't let anyone plant the middle. Mum asked him twice and he only said the middle was for after. Last Tuesday I knelt on the gravel with the trowel and went down through two inches of soil until it rang against something. It was a biscuit tin with a folded map inside, the whole garden drawn in his square capitals, and beneath the map a note: The centre is for whoever comes back. Nothing else. No date, no name, just that, underlined twice in the blue pencil he kept behind his ear.

I have been ringing your number from the kitchen all week and getting the same flat voice. So on Sunday I planted one bulb in the exact middle, where the tin had sat, and I've been watching the ground ever since as though it might do something clever. Mum says I'm being daft. The pebbles have gone a bit green at the edges with the rain, and the lavender smells like the inside of his coat.

If you read this before the bulb comes up, come up the path anyway. I'll be on the back step with the trowel across my knees, and you can tell me what it is.