Black and grey Polynesian-style tattoo of a turtle with geometric bands on the upper arm and shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Polynesian turtle tattoo on upper arm

Blackwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tribal-style tattoo covers the upper arm and shoulder, centred on a turtle with a triangular pattern on its shell. Bold solid black fills contrast with fine geometric linework, chevrons and leaf-like motifs in the surrounding bands. The photograph is taken close up against a dark background, showing the tattoo's full curve around the arm.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tavita, the tide has gone out so far past the reef that I can walk to the place where the old canoe used to rest. Your grandmother would have scolded me for going alone, but she is the one who taught me the turtle's pattern, so I think she would forgive the trespass. Every triangle on the shell is a way the sea breaks against the lagoon at dawn, and I have counted them all twice this week, the way you counted the rings on the coconut palms when you were small.

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The man from the cannery in Apia came last Thursday asking for the boat again. I told him what I told him in March: the boat is not for sale and neither is the channel between Motu Fa and the outer reef. He laughed and left a card under the sugar tin. I have it here beside your letter. He has written his number in a neat hand, as if the sea were a debt he could collect on.

I am sending this with Mele's cousin, who sails on Saturday. Keep the carved paddle I gave you wrapped in the blue cloth, and when the swell rises in the night, do not go down to the water for anything but the lantern on the hook by the door. The turtle comes back to the same beach each year. I believe she will find you too, if you are patient and keep your eyes on the reef's pale edge.

Write to me when the wind turns. Your loving uncle, Sione.

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