Black tribal tattoo covering the shoulder and upper arm of a man in a dark tank top, in a Polynesian-inspired style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Polynesian-style tribal sleeve on shoulder

Blackwork · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

The design covers the shoulder and upper arm with bold black tribal bands, curved stripes and geometric motifs. Solid black fills contrast with finer interior linework and with areas of bare skin that show as pale shapes between the bands. The close crop is in black and grey, with a dark top and a blurred background.

Blackwork Geometric Shoulder Upper arm Tribal Polynesian Sleeve Geometric pattern Swirl Chevron Triangle Band

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasi,

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The lamp went dark on Tuesday for the first time in nine years, and I have been sitting with that silence since, listening to the sea work at the rock as if it has been waiting for its chance. The relief boat did not come. Mrs Pryce sent word by the wireless that the spring gales took the jetty at Carn Bay, so we are on our own until the calm returns. I have rationed the paraffin and taught myself to read the sky the way Father did, by the colour of the cloud over the headland.

You will laugh, but I have been drawing again. On the back of the logbook I have sketched the bands you showed me the summer you came home, the ones with sharp chevrons like teeth and curved stripes that look like a swell rolling under a hull. I copied them from memory. I got the spacing wrong and the swirls came out too tight, but when I hold the page to the window the light goes through the gaps the way it does through the reef at low water, and I think that is what you meant all those years ago when you said the pattern was a map.

I went down to the lower gallery last night and counted the rock steps by lamplight, just to keep my hands busy. Forty-one to the landing, then the iron ladder to the store. At the bottom I found a tin box of your old charts, sealed in oilcloth, and the ink on the top sheet still says Port Mahina in your careful capitals. I have pinned it to the wall beside the clock.

The boat should come with the tide on Friday. When it does, I will row out with the pages and you can tell me which of my lines are wrong. Until then the light stays dark, and I am learning slowly to find my way without it.

Your brother, Eli