Black and grey botanical tattoo of two sunflowers with leaves on the upper arm, with a grey t-shirt sleeve rolled above it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sunflowers on an upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows two sunflowers, one larger at the top and a smaller one lower left, joined by a curving stem and broad leaves. It is worked in black ink with fine outlines and stippled dotwork shading on the petals, seed heads and leaves. The design is rendered in black and grey only, and it fills the outer upper arm against a plain background of a grey t-shirt sleeve.

Botanical Dotwork Upper arm Sunflower Flower Leaves Stem Botanical

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the big one at the back of plot nine finally turned its face towards the kitchen window last Tuesday, so I have stopped pretending I don't check on it every morning. Mrs Okonedo says the small one by the water butt is the one to watch, because it grew from a seed you dropped on the path the summer you left, and nothing I planted that year came up at all.

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I spent Sunday counting seeds with a darning needle, which is ridiculous, and got to four hundred before the light went. Each one sits in its own little spiral, dark dot after dark dot, as if someone had pressed a fine nib into the head one stipple at a time. The leaves are going the colour of old pennies at the edges, and the stem bends so far under the weight that I had to tie it to the fence with your old school tie.

The man from the council came round about the lease and stood looking at the flowers for a long minute before he said anything. He asked whether we would let the heads dry out for the goldfinches. I said yes, and he nodded as though that was the answer he had hoped for, then went off down the path with his clipboard under his arm.

I have left the seed heads standing. When you come home at Christmas, bring a paper bag. We can strip the big one together and see who can get the most seeds into the bag without losing any to the wind. Love, Nan.