Two matching small botanical tattoos of a rose sprig with leaves in dark ink on the inner forearms near the wrists.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Matching rose sprig tattoos on two wrists

Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two identical small tattoos of a rose sprig, with a bud, an open bloom and several leaves on a thin stem, sit on the inner forearms of two people. The linework is fine and simple, with the ink shaded in dark grey tones. The photo is taken close up with a warm, vintage-style filter, and the two tattoos are placed side by side in the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Marta kept the rose cutting dry under her coat for nine days of the crossing, because the rest of the hold stank of wet barrels and she would not trust it to anyone else. Her sister Ilse had given it to her on the quay at Leith, a single sprig from their mother's wall: one bud, one open bloom, three leaves on a stem no thicker than thread.

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The fisherwives at home say a cutting only takes if two people share the root. So Ilse had split the stem at the knot before she let go, and kept her half sewn into the lining of her bag. Ilse was bound for Bergen on a herring boat, Marta for the Newfoundland banks, and neither knew when the sea would return either of them to the same quay.

On the fortieth day a squall took the mainsail, and Marta sat in the cabin with the sprig pressed against her collarbone, saying over the names of the stars the mate had taught her. The cutting did not drown. When the Newfoundland crew came ashore at Greenock that autumn, the first thing Marta saw was Ilse, thinner and browner, holding her own half up like a lantern.

They sat on a bollard and fitted the cut ends together with a thumbnail. Neither spoke about the boats. Marta dipped a sailmaker's needle in lamp-black and drew the sprig on the inside of Ilse's wrist, bud and bloom and all, and Ilse did the same for her. Then they climbed the hill together, each carrying the same rose, and the gulls followed them all the way to the inn.

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