Fine-line black tattoo of an open leaf wreath on the back of a neck, with leaves curving around the lower half.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small leaf wreath on the back of the neck

Fine line · Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A small open wreath of thin, stylised leaves sits centrally on the back of the neck, curving round the lower half with gaps at the top. The linework is delicate and even, with simple outlined leaves and tiny stems, and the ink is solid black. The pale skin and soft focus keep the composition centred on the tattoo, with a little hair visible at the top of the frame.

Fine line Botanical Neck Wreath Leaves Laurel Foliage

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bay tree had outgrown its tub by the time the lift broke for the third time that month, so Ruth carried the cuttings down eleven flights in a carrier bag, resting her hip against the cold rail on every landing. Her granddaughter Keeley had her sixth-form prize-giving on Friday and had asked, in the careful voice she used when she wanted something, for a proper wreath rather than a card with a gold sticker on it.

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At the kitchen table Ruth stripped the lower leaves and bound the stems with florist's wire, working from left to right the way her mother had shown her in a Kentish kitchen that smelt of paraffin and Sunday roast. Each leaf had to lie the same way, pointing round the curve like the hands of a clock running backwards. She bent the ring until it held its shape, then stopped short of closing it. A gap at the top, the width of two fingers, was where the ribbon would go and where the wreath would hang from the nail by the door.

The radio on the windowsill was reading out the shipping forecast, Viking, North Utsire, the names rolling on as if nothing had changed. Len had always said a wreath should be closed, that an open one was just a bit of rope somebody had given up on. She had never argued with him, because he was usually right about things that could be checked and wrong about things that couldn't. She tucked the ribbon through the gap and left the space open anyway.

On Friday morning the light came through that gap and laid a thin bright crescent across the wallpaper. Keeley, reaching up to lift it from the nail, said it looked like a door somebody had left ajar for her. Ruth said nothing. Below them the lift shuddered, groaned and started again, and someone on the eighth floor began to whistle.