Colour realism tattoo of three red and orange poppies with black stems and faint ink splashes, across the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three red poppies across a back

Botanical · Back · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows three poppies on the upper back, one large bloom at the top and two smaller ones lower down, each on a thin black stem. The petals are shaded in reds, oranges and pinks with soft gradients, and the centre of the top flower has dark detail. Loose black splashes and fine stem lines at the bottom add movement to the composition.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Dan,

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The poppies have come up on the tip again, the same as last year, and I stood at the back gate longer than I meant to with the washing going stiff on the line. They grew out of the grey shale where nothing else would take, three of them at first, then a dozen by the weekend, red as the lamp glass you used to polish on a Sunday.

Mrs Hollis from number nine says they're a sign, and I told her a poppy is only a poppy, but I went up the path after tea anyway. The top one was the biggest, its heart dark and fierce where the seed pods sat like little crowns. The two lower ones leaned towards each other as if they were sharing a secret, their stalks thin as the wire on your old kite. Between them the ground was spattered with coal dust that the rain had dragged into the shapes of wings.

Your shift finished at six this morning, the foreman's boy said, so you'll be asleep by now with your boots by the door. Sleep well. I'll bring the good bread up on Thursday and sit on the bench at the top, where you can see the cages come up from the pit and the whole valley below.

Tell the men the poppies are out. Tell them I said so.

Love, Ellen

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