Fine line black tattoo of an anchor woven into an infinity symbol with the word hope and a small heart, on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Anchor and infinity with hope on the upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a ship's anchor on the left, joined to an infinity symbol whose right loop contains the word hope in cursive script, with a small heart beneath. The linework is thin and even, with solid black ink and no shading, and the design sits on a light skin tone. The photograph is taken close up over the shoulder blade, with the design centred and warm indoor lighting.

Fine line Lettering Back Anchor Infinity symbol Hope Heart

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last of the big top came down on a wet Tuesday, and by Thursday the canvas men had folded it into the lorry like a sheet off a bed nobody was sleeping in. You stood by the ring with a mug of tea gone cold and watched Mr Aske count the chairs. There had been four hundred once. Now there were nine, and one of them had its leg mended with baling wire.

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For eleven seasons your job had been to catch. Dolores flew off the high platform, you hung upside down from the far bar with your wrists locked, and when she let go you took her weight out of the air. Nobody in the crowd ever looked at the catcher. They looked at the drop. A catcher is an anchor that moves, Dolores used to tell you, and you laughed, because she said things like that before breakfast and meant every one.

The offer came in September, from a pier at Weymouth that wanted a flying act for the summer and would pay fares for two. Dolores read the letter twice at the kitchen table and then pushed it across to you without a word. Outside, the painter was touching up the side of the wagon, lettering the word Hope in its long looping script the way he had every spring since before you were born. You told her no. She said she had known you would, and went off to pack the rigging.

On the last night you climbed to the far platform alone, because the rigging was still up and nobody had thought to take it down. The ring below was dust and bare boards. You hung from the bar by your knees and let your arms fall loose, the way you had waited a thousand times for someone to come down into them. Nothing came. The net was still there, slack and patient, and you hung above it until your hands forgot how to hold on, and then you let go anyway, and it held.