Traditional tattoo on the upper arm of a heart-shaped frame holding a moth, a flower, a snake and a hand gripping a small heart, outlined in black with orange-red accents.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Heart, moth and hand on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A heart-shaped frame with a scalloped border encloses a moth, a flower, a snake and stars, with a hand at the base holding a small heart wrapped in a ribbon. The bold black outlines and solid black fills are set against dotwork shading on the hand and grey tones within the frame. Orange-red lines and accents add colour to the heart outline, and the design is centred on the upper arm.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Your grandmother's veil has a moth hole just above the left shoulder, and the vicar's wife spots it before anyone else does. She says nothing, only pins a sprig of white heather over the damage and gives you a look that means luck, not bad luck, not if you keep your chin up. You are twenty minutes from walking down the aisle at St Hilda's, and the bells in the tower are ringing too early, as though someone up there has lost count.

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Your brother Alfie sorted the flowers. He tied the stems with red ribbon because the florist in Market Rasen had run out of white, and now the bouquet looks like something carried to a fair rather than a church. You told him it was perfect. You said it in the car, and he didn't believe you, and that is the closest the two of you have come to a row all year.

Then the door opens and Tom is standing in the wrong place, halfway up the nave, turning a pocket watch he has been winding since breakfast. He has never once been on time. He looks at the heather, at the ribbon knotted round your wrist, and holds out his palm the way you both used to on the back step when you were children, promising the same thing twice.

You take his hand. The moth on the veil stays still. Behind you, the bells finally catch up.

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