Small black and grey shaded bow tattoo on the upper back of a person with long hair pulled up, seen from behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small bow tattoo on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small bow tattoo sits on the upper back, close to the base of the neck and between the shoulder blades. The bow has outlined loops and a central knot, with grey shading that gives it some depth. The photo is taken from behind, with the subject's hair gathered up and a hand in it, and the tattoo is set against plain skin in the centre of the frame.

Back Bow Ribbon

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are already halfway up the ladder when Nan calls from the kitchen step that the grafting knife is in the drawer, not the shed, and you should stop pretending you know where anything is. The Victoria plum has leaned towards the wall for three summers, and this is the autumn it either gets propped or cut back. Nan ties a strip of faded blue ribbon around the graft so you can tell the union from the rootstock, a habit she picked up from her own mother in a Kent orchard you have only seen in brown photographs.

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The work goes slowly. Wind comes over the allotments carrying smoke from somebody's bonfire, and Nan talks about the bow she made for her wedding, how she pinched each loop so it would sit flat for the photographs. You tie the ribbon into a knot, then into a bow with two loops and two tails. Against the bark it looks ridiculous, so you leave it there and let the weather decide.

Winter takes its time. In March you come back and the ribbon has gone grey and the bark has begun to rise around its edges, the way a tree does when it means to keep something. Nan has been in hospital since Christmas. You stand in the wet grass and work at the bow with cold fingers, but it has knotted itself into the wood, and in the end you leave one loop where it is.

In April the blossom opens on the graft, white and certain of itself, and the ribbon sits buried in the first ring of new growth like something Nan tucked away to find later. You take a photograph on your phone and hold it up to the hospital window so she can see.