Black and grey Polynesian-style tribal tattoo with plumeria flowers across a shoulder and upper arm.

Polynesian tribal shoulder and upper arm

Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A large tribal-style design covers the shoulder and upper arm, built from bold black scrolls, triangular bands and flowing leaf-like forms. Two plumeria flowers sit at the top of the shoulder and lower on the arm, shaded with soft grey tones that give them depth. The design is shown in black and grey ink against a dark background, with the photograph cropped below the neck.

Shoulder Upper arm Tribal pattern Plumeria Scroll Triangle Leaves Wave

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

At ten past three the ward goes quiet in the way Agnes Pell has learned not to trust. The lights in bay four are dimmed, the drip stands hum, and on the sill by the sluice window sits a jam jar holding one plumeria, its petals gone the colour of old piano keys. Her cousin posted it from Auckland in a shoebox packed with newspaper, a cutting from a tree that will never grow in Hull.

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Mr Okafor in bed nine wants the tide tables. He cannot sleep without knowing when the water turns at Spurn Point, he tells her, having fished those sands for forty years before his knees gave out. Agnes checks his obs, logs his pressure, and pulls the tables up on the ward computer. "High water four fifty-two," she says, and he nods like a man hearing the final score.

He asks her to move the jar where he can see it. She carries it over and sets it on his locker, and the car park lamps outside throw a pale curl of light across the petals, the same slow curve as the scrolls on the page of the leaflet about pain relief she has been meaning to file. He says his wife used to float flowers like these in a basin for the table. Agnes says nothing useful, because nothing useful is needed, and she straightens the cannula tape on his wrist instead.

At five the sky over the car park begins to grey and the night sister comes on with her coffee and her clipboard. Agnes hands over the bays one by one. In the log she writes bed nine, settled, observations within range, and then, because it seems true, she adds that the tide turned at quarter to five.