Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Small botanical sprig on a forearm
Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo
A small sprig of leaves on a slender stem is tattooed on the inner forearm, running up from the wrist. The linework is fine and even, with some shading and stippling on the leaves to give them depth. The tattoo is in black ink only and sits against a plain pale grey wall, with the hand hanging loosely below.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Hold it by the wrong end and you'll lose the lot, so give it here. There. That's a willow-leaf cutting off the old hedge behind the sluice, the one your grandfather swore the flood of '53 never reached. Look at the leaves. Each one has its own little shadow, see, where the pen went round twice to make it sit. Nobody believes a sprig is worth that much patience, but a leaf is only a leaf until somebody sits up with it at night.
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We'll strip the bottom pair and set it in the sand bed by the stove. Don't water it yet. Roots come when they're ready, not when you're fretting. Last winter I lost six cuttings because I kept poking them to see. The seventh, the stubborn little thing at the end of the row, is the one I still have, and it's climbed over the back wall of the potting shed like it owns the place.
Mind the frost tonight. The glass will ring if it drops below minus three, and you'll hear it from the cottage. When it rings, don't go out in your slippers with a lamp to check. Just lay the sacking over and come back in. Plants forgive a great deal. They don't forgive a boy running about in the dark for nothing.
In March, when the sap is up, cut a clean slant and press it into the stock. Then leave it be. That's the whole art of it, really. Keep your hands still and let the green do the rest.
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