Black script lettering tattooed across the upper back reads Roses are red, My name's Dave, This poem makes no sense, Microwave, in a lettering style.

Script poem across the upper back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a black script poem tattooed across the upper back, set over textured skin with a pink wall and posters blurred in the background. The four lines are rendered in fine, slightly uneven black linework with soft shading, and the lines are staggered and indented for a loose, handwritten feel. The image is evenly lit and centred on the text.

Lettering Back Script Text Rose

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Marjorie had written the verses for the Pennant Bay card rack for nineteen years, and her one rule was four lines, one rhyme, and nothing about kitchen appliances. So when Dave Pellow shuffled in on a wet Tuesday with a fish-delivery docket covered in pencil, she read it twice before she looked up.

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"Roses are red," it began, in capitals. "My name's Dave. This poem makes no sense. Microwave."

"Is that the whole thing?" she asked.

"Lorna likes a bit of structure," he said. "I thought I'd keep it simple. Then I thought it needed a full stop, and I couldn't decide where."

Marjorie took the docket to the back office and spent the afternoon with a biro and a mug of stewed tea. She tried to fix it. She rewrote the second line as "Dave is my name, and I am yours", then crossed it out because Dave had said Lorna would know him by his boots. Outside, the gulls fought over a bag of chips on the harbour wall, and the tide turned against the slipway without asking anybody's permission.

At closing time she handed the docket back. He read it slowly, nodded, and said it was perfect, which was the kindest thing anyone had said about her work in years. He paid for the card, folded the docket into his coat, and left the bottom of it blank where the last line should have been. Through the shop window she watched him stop at the chippy, turn back, and press his face to the glass, mouthing the words as if the poem might make more sense with the lights on.