Three green, orange and red butterflies with black outlines in a traditional style, sitting on the inside of a wrist against a dark green background.

Three butterflies on a wrist

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A hand is clenched at the top of the frame with a forearm extending down to the bottom right. Three butterflies with bold black outlines, green wings, and orange and red markings are arranged in a loose triangle on the wrist. The background is a blurred dark green foliage, which keeps the focus on the colourful motif.

Traditional Forearm Butterfly Insect Wing

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasz, the guard at the Krzywa crossing turned the tin over twice before he prised off the lid, and I watched his thumb hover above the wings inside as though they might flutter off and claim asylum themselves. It is Papa's old cigar tin, the one with the faded tram on the front. Nestled on a square of wax paper lay the three butterflies Nana cut from the green silk of her wedding scarf and painted with orange and red at her kitchen table, the summer before the wire went up.

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He asked what they were for. I said they were for you, which was true, though I did not tell him that Nana blackened the edges with a sable brush she kept standing in a jar of vinegar, or that the spots on the wings were meant to look like eyes so that birds would leave them alone. He held the tin up to the lamp for a long time. Then he said, to nobody in particular, that his own mother had sewn something similar into his coat. He closed the lid and waved me through.

The bus from the far side smelt of diesel and wet wool, and I held the tin on my knees the whole way to Lodz. Past the second village a gust came through the gap in the window, and I was certain I had lost one of them, but when I looked the smallest had caught against the rim of the tin, its wings opening and closing as if it were still deciding where to go.

The third one is sewn inside the lining of your old grey coat, which is hanging on the hook by the door where you cannot miss it when you come in on Sunday. Do not check the pockets first. Love, Ania.