Black and grey pencil sketch of a dragonfly with spread wings and the words embrace imperfection in cursive script above it, shown as a tattoo design with no body placement visible.

Dragonfly sketch with 'embrace imperfection'

Black and grey · Flash

A hand-drawn sketch of a dragonfly seen from above with its wings spread horizontally, body in the centre and a thin tail extending downwards. The wings are filled with loose, sketchy linework, swirls, dots and small curled motifs, with some areas left as light shading. The cursive phrase embrace imperfection sits in the upper right, and the plain white background frames the whole composition.

Dragonfly Insect Wing Script Quote Sketch

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are on the quay at Saltmere before the boats are in, the mending loft still smelling of tar and cold smoke. The net across your knees has a tear the size of a palm, and the skipper of the Constance wants it whole by noon. Mrs Oake already has her needle threaded and is watching you the way she watches gulls.

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Working the twine loose, you find a dragonfly tangled in the mesh. It has been there all night, its wings split along the veins like wet paper. When you lift it free, one wing folds back on itself and the other is frayed at the edge, but its body still shivers under your thumb. Mrs Oake glances over and says a torn thing belongs to the gulls. You don't answer. You set it on the warm sill by the window, where the light comes through its wings and turns them the colour of old glass.

Then you go back to the net and tie your knots the way your grandfather taught you, each one thick and lumpy so that anyone can see where the repair is. Mrs Oake tuts that the fish will snag on them. You tell her they will hold. At noon the skipper runs his palm along the mended panel, feels the bumps under his fingers and frowns, but he does not ask you to cut them out. He pays you in coins that are still warm from his pocket.

When you look up again the sill is empty. Outside, the dragonfly is hanging from the lamp post above the slipway, one wing patched with grey thread where you tried to close the split. It lifts, turns twice in the wind, and goes out over the harbour wall with its mismatched wings catching the sun, and you go back to your knots.