Realistic grey shaded tattoo of a sequence of moon phases running down a forearm, against a red sleeve and dark wooden background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Moon phases sequence on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Eight moons in different phases run in a diagonal line down the forearm, from a thin crescent at the top to a nearly full disc at the bottom. Each moon is shaded in black and grey with soft gradients and fine surface detail such as craters and maria. The plain red fabric and dark wooden background keep the focus on the tattoo.

Realism Forearm Moon Moon phase Crescent moon Full moon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday. Weevils in the second sack again, so I have binned the lot and pinned the barrel lid shut. The captain says we sit on this bar until the big tide lifts us off, and the big tide comes with the full moon, which by my chalk marks is seven nights off. I have been scoring the count on the bulkhead beside the stove. Tonight there was a paring of moon over the fen light, no thicker than a fingernail, and I told the boy it was the Lord's own crust on a biscuit.

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Breakfast was burnt. Each night the moon fattens: half on the third, a lopsided thing on the fifth like a bannock left too long on the griddle. Tonight it is grey and near round, and the ship's cat sits on the sill staring at it as if it owes him money. Mr Oakes says the bar has taken two lighters and a pilot boat, and that the sand moves like a live thing under the keel. I have stopped asking him what he means by that.

The cold came in on the sixth night. We ate the last of the salt pork cold, passing the tin round the mess table with our fingers, and nobody complained because nobody had the heart. Mr Oakes sat with his cap in his lap and told us about his wife's bread, how she set it to rise by the cooling range so it would be ready when the men came in off the drains.

On the eighth night I will bake the last good flour into a round loaf, score it the way my mother taught me, and leave it on the sill beside the cat. Whoever is awake when the water comes up under the hull can have the first slice.