Black line tattoos on inner forearms: a geometric flower of overlapping circles and hexagons, a raised hand near the elbow and a small crescent moon on the wrist.

Geometric flower, hand and crescent moon on forearms

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Three small black tattoos sit on the inner forearms of a person in a white t-shirt and jeans, with their hands resting together. The largest is a geometric flower made of overlapping circles and a hexagonal lattice, drawn in fine, even outlines. Smaller single-line designs include an outlined raised hand near the elbow and a thin crescent moon on the wrist, all in black ink on light skin.

Fine line Geometric Forearm Geometric Flower Circle Hexagon Hand Crescent moon Moon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm had drawn the compass wrong for three days before he admitted it was the compass and not his hand. I told him so from the next desk, where I was ruling lines for the psalter with a bone folder and a pot of lead point, and he threw his rag at me across the scriptorium the way he did when he was pleased to be corrected.

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The problem was the flower. Abbot Oswin wanted a rose window for the chapter house floor, a pattern of seven overlapping rings set inside a hexagon of lead strips, and the rings kept drifting off their centres. Anselm had drawn it on vellum and then on slate, and each time the petals came out lopsided. I took the compass from him, set the point on the first crossing, and showed him the circles did not need measuring at all, only remembering. Six around one, every ring touching its neighbours, the centre left open for the light.

Brother Tobias, who kept the night offices, came in as we finished, rubbing his eyes. He wanted a crescent scratched onto the brass plate of the sundial so the sacristan could tell the lunar feasts without climbing the tower. Anselm was already sketching it: a sliver moon, thin as a paring, its belly turned towards the window. Tobias raised one hand, palm out, the old way, to stop us arguing about the angle, and said the moon was only a hand held up to the sky, closing and opening, and that we should stop trying to make it do more.

I cut the plate that evening. The light had gone off the brass by the time the crescent was finished, and I left the compass lying open on the bench, its point still sunk in the wood.