Black and grey botanical tattoo of a rose with leaves on the back of a hand, held under clear turquoise water.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Rose tattoo on the back of a hand

Botanical · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A hand with a shaded rose and leaves tattooed across the back, with the rose at the top left of the design and the stems running towards the knuckles. The tattoo uses dark outlines with soft grey shading in the petals, and the ink is black and grey. The hand rests under rippling turquoise water, with gold rings on the fingers and pale lilac nails against the cool background.

Botanical Hand Rose Leaves Stem Ring Water

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The roses came down the pass on Ivo's cart the morning before the snow shut the road, the stems wrapped in wet sacking and smelling of cold stone. I counted forty-two. Forty-one were the pale ones you asked for. The last was the dark rose from the north bed, the one with the leaves that curl back like they are listening. I could not bring myself to pack it with the others, so I put it in the stone trough by the gate and let the meltwater run over its roots until the frost came in the night.

When I went out at first light the trough had a skin of ice, and under it the bloom had opened all the way, the grey shading in its petals gone soft as the bottom of a pond. The sun came over the ridge and the light broke on the water and moved across the stems in lines, like something was swimming underneath. Ivo says that is only the cold making patterns, but I think a rose should be allowed one thing it does not have to explain.

I have sold your mother's gold rings to the man in the valley who buys for the mine office. Do not be angry. The money is in the tin under the stove, enough for the spring seed and for the boots you need before you walk back up. He wanted the rings on the little finger, so he took them off my hand while I was still wearing the cold from the trough, and I did not stop him.

Come home by the Saddle road if the snow allows. Bring the good shears. The dark rose is still in the trough, and I am not going to lift it until you can see it with your own eyes.

Your sister, Nadia