Black ink moon phases and a moth tattoo on a torso partly covered by white lace, with an ornamental blackwork swirl on the forearm and hand.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Moon phases and moth on the abdomen

Blackwork · Other · Mixed · Photo

A close shot of a torso in a white lace crop top and a pink patterned skirt, showing a row of black moon phase shapes from crescent to full moon with a moth or winged motif above them, partly hidden by the lace hem. An ornamental blackwork swirl with bold solid line sits on the forearm and wrist, and small marks are visible on the fingers. The palette is mainly black and grey, with some colour visible in tattoos on the upper arm at the right edge.

Blackwork Other Forearm Hand Moon phase Moon Moth Swirl Ornament Finger tattoo

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The almanac was my gran's, and she never trusted anything that didn't agree with it. Every January she kept the lambing book by the kitchen clock, a column of dates down the side with the moon drawn in pencil beside each one. I inherited the book the winter her hip gave out, along with the top field and a list of rules I was still learning. Dark of the moon meant the worst nights. Full moon meant you could see your breath cloud and read the ear tags without a torch.

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The moth came in during the second week of frost. It had been drawn to the lamp in the porch and kept bumping the glass until I opened the door and it staggered out to the ledge above the feed sacks and stayed there. Grey wings, pale at the edges like a lace collar, two dark marks on each wing like thumbprints. Gran would have said a moth in January meant a hard lambing. I said nothing and left it be, because the barn was lonely after dark and it seemed rude to chase away company.

Then the new moon came, and a ewe went down in the top field with one leg folded back. No moon, no stars under the cloud, just the torch clamped in my teeth and my hands working by feel. I talked nonsense to her the whole time to keep my own nerves steady. When the lamb came out wet and still, I cleared its nose the way Gran showed me and rubbed it with straw until it sneezed. Back in the porch the lamp had burned down, and the ledge was empty. I found the moth flat on the lambing book, folded against the page over tomorrow's date, as if it had been keeping the place.

I drew the new moon that morning, a black ring with nothing inside it, and wrote the ewe's number underneath with one live tup lamb. The moth stayed where it had landed until the sun came over the hedge and lifted it off the page, and I let it go.