Black and grey botanical tattoo of a peony, leaves and a dotwork mandala on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Peony and mandala on a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A large peony bloom with a smaller open flower and several leaves, shaded in black and grey. A dotwork mandala sits to the left of the flower, with a dangling chain of beads and diamond shapes running down beneath it. The fine stippling and clean linework are set against a plain white background, with the design wrapping around the forearm.

Botanical Dotwork Forearm Peony Flower Leaves Mandala Bead Diamond Chain

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bead curtain in the hall of Sea Holly House had been clicking all morning, and Doris Penhale knew it was the wind off the bay and not the lodger on the stairs, though she listened for him anyway. Room four had been empty since Tuesday. The peonies along the front wall had come out early, heavy pink heads bent against the railings, and the rain forecast for Saturday would finish them.

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He had left a tin on the sideboard with a note propped against it: 'Keep these dry, they're worth more than my rent.' Inside, wrapped in greaseproof paper, were a dozen circles of pricked card, each one a mandala of dots and scallops with a diamond drop hanging from the centre like a bead on a plumb line. Doris had watched him sit at the kitchen table three evenings running, pouncing charcoal through them onto the backs of envelopes, his lips moving as he counted.

On Friday she took the secateurs to the front bed and cut the biggest bloom, the one that had split its outer petals in the night. She carried it through the hall, past the rattling beads, and laid it on the sideboard beside the tin. Then she took the top card from the stack and held it over the flower, and the dotted rings lined up with the centre of the bloom as if they had been drawn around it.

She pinned the card to the window glass with two drawing pins from the kitchen drawer, so the morning light came through the pricked holes and fell across the rug in small bright coins. Outside, the first drops began to tick on the railings. Doris left the card where it was and went to find a vase.