Bold black blackwork tattoo of overlapping circles and triangles with ink splatter details, placed on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Circles and triangles on upper back

Blackwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black tattoo of interlocking circles and two triangles forms a symmetrical, flower-like emblem. The lines are thick and slightly brushed, with loose ink dots scattered around the lower left edge. The design is rendered in black ink only, centred on pale skin against a plain background.

Blackwork Geometric Back Circle Triangle Symbol Emblem

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, 14 October. The boat didn't come again, so I walked the shingle at low water with Mr Pell's ledger under my arm and counted the rings the sea had left in the wet sand. Seven, where there should have been nine. The tide had taken two in the night, leaving only the triangle of stones Father set when I was small, the one he said pointed the way to the harbour bell.

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Pell says the mark is a tide-gauge sign, three bells stacked like a flower, but I have never trusted a man who keeps his pencil behind his ear. Father's sign was never for tides. He cut it into the lintel of the net shed, circle inside circle, two triangles laid point to point like a pair of hands, and he told me that whatever the water took, it had to give back the shape of what it took.

I went to the shed this afternoon with a bucket of lime wash and a brush the width of my palm. Salt had softened the old cut, so I went over it slowly, letting the bristles splay and flicking the last drops off the edge where the wall meets the floor. A wind came up off the north and sprayed the wash across my sleeve in tiny black stars, and I left them where they landed.

By dusk the emblem was clear again, bold as a seal on a letter. I rang the bell twice, the way Father did when a boat was overdue, and then I sat on the step and waited for someone to answer. The tide turned at six. It always does, and that is the only promise I have ever trusted.