Dark mandala-style sun design with a central spiral on the upper back, close to the shoulder blade, in a geometric style.

Mandala sun on the upper back near the shoulder

Geometric · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A circular mandala-style design with a central spiral sits on the upper back beside the shoulder blade. The fine, dark linework forms radiating petal-like points, small dots and a scalloped inner ring on sun-tanned skin. The design is black and has a slightly matte, henna-like appearance, and the bikini straps and sunlit background frame it.

Geometric Shoulder Mandala Sun Spiral Dot Petal Circle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last season of Haddon's Travelling Circus started with an argument about the sun. Mr Haddon wanted a gold disc stitched onto the big top's valance, wide as a cartwheel, so the crowds at Skegness could see it from the pier. Mrs Okafor, who had kept the wardrobe for thirty years, said the canvas was rotten at the seams and would split under the weight. I had the needle, so the job landed on me.

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I worked it in black thread on the faded cream panels, since nobody could afford the gold. A ring of petals first, each one pointed like a flame and tipped with a small barb. Then dots in the gaps, dozens of them, which took three nights because my eyes kept closing over the cloth. Inside the petals I ran a scalloped ring, and at the centre I made a spiral that began with one stitch and wound outward until my thumb blistered through and I had to bind it with ribbon.

The sun never went on the valance. Haddon sold the tent in October to a scrap man who only wanted the poles, and the panels were folded into a lorry bound for a yard outside Doncaster. Before it left I unpicked the centre spiral, one unbroken coil of black thread, and wound it round my finger the way a child winds string. I still keep it in a biscuit tin with the clasp broken. Some nights I unwind it and wind it back up, and it comes out the same size every time, which is more than the circus ever managed.