Black and grey tattoo of a moth with spread wings centred between the shoulder blades on a woman's upper back, viewed from behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Moth tattoo on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman in a red dress is photographed from behind, showing a tattoo of a moth with outstretched wings centred between her shoulder blades. The moth is rendered in black ink with shaded wing detail and a symmetrical outline. The background is a dark step-and-repeat wall with sponsor logos, and the tattoo is the clear focal point against the skin.

Back Moth Wing Insect

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the moth got into the proving room again last night, the big grey one with feathered antennae, and Mr Okafor says we're not to swat it because a thing that comes to the light has come for a reason. So I've spent an hour chasing it with a tea towel instead of shaping the batards, and the first tray has gone out flat as a pancake. He laughed so hard he had to sit on a flour sack.

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It keeps landing on the oven door window, wings spread flat against the warm glass. They're black on the outside, shaded darker at the edges where the dust has worn them, and the two halves mirror each other so exactly it looks like someone drew one side and pressed a folded page down over it. When the oven light hits it, the pattern goes silver along the veins, like frost on a windscreen.

At four, while the sourdough was scoring, Mr Okafor propped the back door open with a crate of rye. He said his mother used to do the same, so the night could come in and see what they were making. The moth sat on the step for a long while, then took off over the car park, past the bins and the wet roofs, towards the railway bridge where the sky was starting to go the colour of skimmed milk.

I went back to the dough, which had been patient the whole time. Come in June, when the ovens are on from midnight, and I'll save you the first loaf. Mind the step, it's still cold. Love, Ruth.