Black outline tattoo of a stylised flower with curling stem, scrolls and leaves on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Stylised flower and stem on upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A single-line outline tattoo shows a stylised flower with flame-like petals at the top, joined to a long stem with spiral curls and two pointed leaves. The linework is thin and even in black ink, with no shading or fill. The design is shown in black and grey on pale skin, with a white sleeve at the top edge of the frame.

Botanical Fine line Upper arm Flower Stem Leaf Scroll Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hanne kept the stove going on the barge Gull all that winter, because the river had frozen at the edges and the boy who came to help with the lines had nowhere else to go. Her husband had carved a flower into the rail before he drowned, a thing with a head like a fire and a stalk that curled back on itself. Tom asked why it had flames for petals. Hanne said flowers were only fire that had learned to be patient.

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In March the ice went out with a noise like doors slamming, and a flood came down the Severn carrying the timbers of a mill. Tom was on the towpath when the bank gave way. He grabbed a willow root and held on while the brown water pulled at his boots, and he thought of the stalk on the rail, how it bent and never broke.

Hanne came along the bank with a lantern and a coil of rope, and she did not shout. She waited until he looked up, then tied the rope round the trunk and threw the end to him. He climbed hand over hand, and when he reached the deck she had the stove lit so hot the iron glowed.

He asked why she had not come sooner. She said the flower on the rail only opened when someone was out in the cold. Then she set the kettle on the fire, and the steam rose and curled up like the scrolls carved in the wood.