Black fine line ornamental cross tattoo with scrollwork and small dots on the inner wrist and forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate cross on the wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The image shows a black ornamental cross tattoo on the wrist and lower forearm, photographed at an angle against a pale, fuzzy background. The design uses thin, even linework with looped scrollwork, small diamond shapes and dots along each arm of the cross. The tattoo is in black ink only, with the warm lighting and skin tone giving the photo a reddish cast.

Fine line Forearm Cross Scrollwork Dot Ornament Diamond

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have been pruning the rose arch at the bottom of Mrs Okafor's allotment since before the frost, and the wire keeps catching your sleeve. Every cut you make leaves a little stub of green that bleeds sap the colour of weak tea. She told you to leave the old canes alone, that they hold the hips for the birds, but you have never once listened to her about anything that could be cut. Today the wind comes over the fence from the railway cutting and bends the whole arch toward you, and you have to brace one hand flat on the brick wall to stop it taking your face.

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When you look down, the cross of scrolls you drew in biro on the back of a seed packet last winter is lying in the mud where it fell from your pocket. The loops have already gone soft with damp. You pick it up and smooth it on your knee, and the diamonds you pressed in at each arm have run into the paper like tiny wet eyes. You do not remember deciding to draw it. You only remember that the lines kept curling back on themselves until you let them.

Mrs Okafor comes down the path with a flask and a tin of shortbread and finds you kneeling there. She does not ask what you are holding. She sets the flask on the wall, unscrews the cup, and pours, and when she hands it to you she points with her chin at the arch. Four of the thickest canes have been cut clean at the root, and the light is coming through where they used to be. You drink the tea, which is too sweet, and you realise you have been holding your breath since the wind started.