Black fine line vine and leaf tattoo across the back, shoulder and upper arm of a woman photographed from behind with her hair up.

Vine and leaf tattoo across a back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman seen from behind displays a large botanical design of curling vines and leaves that sweeps down from the shoulder across the back. The linework is fine and dark grey to black, with small dots and shading in the leaves, and a smaller continuation of the vine runs onto the upper arm. The warm, sepia-toned photograph is framed to focus on the tattoo, with the subject's face turned away from the camera.

Fine line Botanical Dotwork Back Upper arm Shoulder Vine Leaves Swirl Flourish Foliage

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The bindweed has got into the barrier again. Mr Okafor from the post office says it came over the fence in the night while the lights were off, and by morning it had wound three times round the chain and put out leaves the size of a child's palm. The officer on the eastern gate wanted it cut back before the lorries came through. I told him it would only grow again by tomorrow, and that the chain would hold it better than any of us. He laughed and let it be. You always said the stubborn things are the ones worth keeping.

The curl of it is strange, though. It doesn't climb straight the way ivy does. It doubles back on itself, throws off a spiral, then a little dotted tendril that goes nowhere useful, then another leaf turned to show its underside. I sat with my tea and traced one run of it in pencil on the back of a delivery note, and I counted eleven bends before I lost track. Every bend had a leaf waiting at it, as if someone had pinned a note there for whoever came next.

The real reason I'm writing is the man who brought the lorries in this morning. He asked after you. He said he'd seen a fellow with your walk on the far side, pushing a handcart of pot plants towards the river. I didn't believe him, but I told him the pots were yours to keep if you ever came back for them.

I've put a cutting in this envelope, wrapped in wet newspaper. Plant it by the back step where the sun catches the wall in the afternoon. It will want something to hold on to, so give it the fence.

Love, Nell