Black and grey fine line tattoo of moon phases running down the inside of a forearm, with small labels for waning crescent, full moon and waxing crescent.

Moon phases sequence on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A row of moon phase shapes runs vertically along the inner forearm, from a thin crescent at the bottom to a crescent near the top, with a full moon in the middle. The phases are drawn in fine black linework with soft dotted shading that fades across each circle to suggest light and shadow. Small handwritten labels sit beside some of the moons, and the plain grey top and dark skirt behind the arm keep the focus on the ink.

Fine line Dotwork Forearm Moon Moon phase Crescent Full moon Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The almanac came with the post this morning, the one your father always kept in the tea caddy, and I have been sitting with it open on the kitchen table since six. Every page has the moon drawn small in the margin, a little black circle with the lit part shaded in dots, the way he shaded them for me when I was nine and too impatient to finish. He would hold the pencil like a surgeon and say the light always comes from the same side of the sky, it is only us who move.

I counted the phases for the crossing, as you asked. Thirteen nights from Harwich to the Hook with the Dutch boat idling at the quay, and each night the moon had grown or thinned, just as you warned me it would. Waxing crescent the first evening, a bent fingernail over the cranes. Full the night the engine failed off the Galloper and the captain swore in three languages. Then the waning, always thinner, until on the last morning there was nothing left but a paring of silver above the sea wall and the gulls going mad over the fish market.

I have decided to keep the almanac. Mrs Okafor at the chandlery says the port authority will want paperwork for anything printed, so I wrote a note on the inside cover in my best hand: lunar, not contraband. The officer read it twice, looked up at the sky through the customs shed window as if checking my claim, and let it through with the rest of my things.

The moon over Rotterdam was a waning crescent when I stepped off the train. Thin as a shaving, and entirely honest about it.