Black tribal blackwork tattoo covering a man's upper arm, shoulder and upper chest, made of bands, chevrons and sunburst-like patterns.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Polynesian tribal sleeve and chest piece

Blackwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A shirtless man shows a large black tattoo of tribal patterns covering his upper arm, shoulder and upper chest, with the lower half of his bearded face visible. The design uses bold solid black bands, chevrons, dotted and hatched fills and curved lines that radiate across the shoulder from the collarbone. The ink is all black and grey, and the pattern follows the muscle shape of the arm and chest.

Blackwork Upper arm Shoulder Chest Tribal pattern Chevron Band Geometric pattern Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Sione,

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I am writing this at the kitchen table because Mum has banned me from the front room until the bunting is up, and the bunting still has a good hour of tying left. Auntie Lisi came round this morning with her grandmother's wooden ruler and a roll of brown paper, and the two of them spent the whole afternoon arguing over the sunburst. She says the rays must fan out from the collarbone like the sun lifting off the reef, and every band has to run with the muscle rather than against it, or the pattern will fight the thing it is meant to carry.

You know how she is with measurements. She had the chevrons marked in pencil before the kettle had boiled, and when Dad tried to help by tracing the dotted fill freehand, she took the pen off him and told him a steady hand was no use if the line lied. He went red and muttered something about the ruler being older than the church, which made Lisi laugh so hard she had to sit down on the step. Then the paper tore right through the middle of the sunburst, and I thought that was the end of the afternoon. Instead Lisi taped it back with the masking tape from the garage and said a crooked line that has been mended is the one people remember.

So that is the plan for Saturday. Dad will stand at the front with the ring box in one pocket and the brown paper folded in the other, because Lisi insists the template goes wherever the rings go. I asked her why, and she only said the pattern should be seen at the start of a marriage, not hidden under a good suit. I will tell you what happens when the photographs are taken. Come early, and bring your camera, and do not let anybody near the cake until I have seen you.

Love, Mele