Black and grey photograph of a row of small moon phase tattoos running along the inner forearm, with stacked beaded bracelets worn at the wrist.

Moon phases tattoo on a forearm

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A row of nine small circles runs along the inner forearm, moving from a near-solid disc at the wrist to a full outlined circle in the middle and back to a solid disc at the end, like a sequence of moon phases. The shapes are a mix of solid black fill and fine outlines, set in an even line across the forearm. The photograph is black and white, with the arm resting on a striped blanket and several beaded bracelets stacked at the wrist.

Geometric Fine line Forearm Moon Moon phase Circle Bracelet Bead

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Ferrier keeps the moon in the back of her almanac, between the tide tables and a pressed violet, and on Tuesdays she reads it out to the dance floor before the band strikes up. Full on Thursday, she says. Half on the Sunday after. You nod as though you'd known, though you only came to the Pavilion because the sea wind got into your flat and wouldn't leave. The floor dips near the stage where the boards have warped, so every waltz tilts a little towards the water.

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Idris asks you to dance on the third Tuesday. He works nights on the harbour, smells of tar and cheap tobacco, and counts the steps under his breath like a man reading a tide chart. You tell him the moon is never really fully round. The dark half is still there, only turned away. He says his gran told him the same thing about everybody. You laugh, he misses a step, and the whole room seems to lean towards the stage.

You start keeping count in the back of your cloakroom ticket book. A dot for the new moon, a sliver, a half, a fat lopsided thing, then full, then the slow walk back down to nothing. Idris comes each week with a shape of his own: a torn shirt cuff, a cough he won't talk about, a question he almost asks. On the Tuesday the almanac marks the new moon, the window goes black and he does not come.

You wait at the edge of the floor until the band packs up. Then you walk down to the harbour wall alone, past the lit boats, and find the moon has slipped back into the sky as a thin white curve over the bay. Nine dots in your book, nine weeks, and at last you see the pattern: you were never counting his absence, only the light coming back. You stand on the wet stone and hum the waltz, and the moon tilts towards the water the way the floor does.