Back view of a shirtless man with a raised arm, showing a solid black tribal blackwork tattoo with triangles and bands across the upper arm and elbow.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black tribal band on upper arm and forearm

Blackwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A shirtless man is photographed from behind against a black background, with one arm raised and the hand resting on his head, so his face is not visible. A bold black tribal design of solid bands, triangles, chevrons and diamond shapes wraps the upper arm and elbow and continues onto the forearm. The linework is cleanly defined with solid black fills and fine skin-coloured negative lines, and the dark backdrop focuses attention on the tattoo.

Blackwork Geometric Upper arm Forearm Tribal Triangle Chevron Diamond Band Geometric pattern Man

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The paddle had to be finished before the tide turned, so I sat on the upturned hull with my grandmother's gouge and a lamp of coconut oil, cutting the shark teeth into the blade one notch at a time. Every triangle had to point the same way or the water would not hold it. She had told me that as a child, and I had believed it the way children believe things that sound like weather.

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The chevrons came next, rows of them running up the shaft like the wake of a fish that had decided to stay. I filled each cut with soot mixed with resin, black as the inside of a closed shell, and rubbed it smooth with a leaf. Down on the beach Tomasi was shouting for me to hurry, because the crossing to Fale Rocks was only ever calm for an hour, and the men did not like to wait for a paddle that was still giving off dust.

I did not hurry. Cutting the diamonds at the join was the last thing, and it was the part she had made me practise on driftwood until my hands ached. A diamond that is slightly off will wobble the whole band, she said, and the sea would find the wobble before anyone else did. I measured twice with a palm-width of string, then once more, and when the last line was sealed I held the paddle up to the lamplight and turned it slowly.

Tomasi came up the sand to look. He ran his thumb along the bands and said nothing for a while. Then he hefted it, dipped it in the shallows, and the water broke into a clean white line that closed behind the blade without a ripple. Good, he said, and that was the most praise my grandmother ever got from him too. We pushed off as the tide came round the point, and I did not look back at the lamp until the shore was just a dark edge on the water.