Colour tattoo of a phoenix with outstretched orange wings and a teal and blue flame above it, with a trailing purple, pink and yellow tail, on the side of a thigh.

Phoenix tattoo on the side of the thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A phoenix with spread orange and red wings sits above a blue and teal flame shape, with a long tail of ribbon-like feathers in purple, pink and yellow falling down the design. The outlines are bold and dark, with soft colour shading inside the wings and tail. The design is centred on the outer thigh, with patterned fabric visible at the top and right edges of the frame.

Neo-trad Thigh Phoenix Bird Flame Feather Wing

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ruth had stitched the last hem of the bridesmaids' dresses at twenty to three, which left her twenty minutes to find the ribbon for the bouquets. It was not in the tin of reels, nor in the carrier bag by the boiler. Her niece Tamsin found her on her knees behind the trestle tables of the village hall, sorting the raffle prizes. "Gran says you've got the pink and yellow ones," Tamsin said, "and Gran says you're to stop crawling about in your good trousers."

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The ribbon was there, rolled in yesterday's newspaper beneath a box of jam jars. Ruth had bought it in March from a shop in Whitby that had closed by June, four strands of silk in lilac, peach, butter and dusky blue. Her late friend Ellis had drawn the design for her on the back of a pub menu years before, a bird with wings spread open above a flame shaped like a lotus, its tail unspooling into long bands of colour. He had said a phoenix was only a bird that had got tired of staying put. She had pinned the menu above the kitchen sink, where it still curled in the steam.

She cut the ribbon into lengths and tied them to the stems, working fast while the florist hummed along to the radio. Tamsin held the bouquets steady and asked whether the bride would mind the colours. Ruth said that the bride had chosen them herself, after sitting on the floor of the shop with a tub of cold tea and refusing to leave until she found the exact shade of the sea at dusk.

When the doors opened and the music started, the bride stepped into the light with her bouquet held low. A draught came through from the car park, and the ribbons lifted together, rising and falling like something that had decided to go on.