Black and grey botanical tattoo of a tied rosemary sprig on the upper arm, with a wasp near the shoulder and a moth below.

Rosemary sprig and insects on upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large bundle of rosemary sprigs tied with string runs diagonally across the upper arm, drawn in clean black outlines with light shading on the leaves. A wasp-like insect sits near the top of the shoulder and a moth with patterned wings spreads across the lower edge of the frame. The image is entirely black and grey and the design fills most of the arm against a dark top.

Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Sprig String Insect Moth

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The market shuts at ten, but you stay on at the stall until the strip lights above Stall Nine are the only thing left humming. Moths have found them already, fat grey ones with eyes painted on their wings, and they bump against the bulbs while you tie the last of the rosemary. You work on the upturned crate, string pulled tight between your teeth, folding each bundle the way your aunt showed you, stems all facing the same way so they look like they're leaning into a wind.

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A wasp has got into the honey jar by the till. It walks the rim slowly, cleaning its legs, and when you tap the lid it doesn't fly, just turns to look at you as if you're the one who has overstayed. You leave it be. The cashbox is still open and the tea urn has gone cold, and there is nobody on the pavement except a man in a grey coat who stops at the edge of the awning as though the stall were a shop window he'd decided not to walk past.

He asks for a bundle. He doesn't haggle. He says his mother used to hang rosemary over the cooker in a flat where the windows never opened, and that the smell got into the curtains and never came out. You hand it over with the string still loose and he holds it the wrong way up, sprigs drooping, and he doesn't correct it. You don't either. He pays in coins that are warm from his pocket, thanks you twice, and walks off towards the bridge.

When the shutter is down, you find one bundle left on the hook. A moth has settled on the string, its wings opening and closing slowly under the last light. You leave it there, hanging by the padlock, so that whoever opens up first in the morning will have to lift it down themselves.