Black script lettering tattoo reading Philippians 4:13 on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Scripture verse in script on upper back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of three lines of black cursive script on skin, reading 'I can do all things through Him who strengthens me' with the reference 'Philippians 4:13' below. The lettering uses fine, even linework with some shading in the strokes, and the text is set at a slight diagonal across the shoulder blade area. The image is tinted warm and the background is dark, with the subject's hair and shoulder softly out of focus.

Lettering Back Script Bible verse Scripture Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lamp has been dimming since the Tuesday you climbed the stairs with the oil can, and by the third night the glass is furred with salt that no cloth will lift. Nobody on the mainland believes a light can fail from weather alone, so the inspector arrives on the supply boat with his collar turned up and his mind already made. He asks what you intend to do about it. You tell him what you told the last man: you are cleaning it.

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Your father kept the Skerrow light for thirty-one years and never once wrote a complaint in the book. It sits open on the table between you, its spine cracked, his hand running down each page in the slanting copperplate he learned from a nun in Aberdeen. Last week you found a line you had never read before, dated in February, in the same careful ink: I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Nothing underneath. No weather noted, no grievance. Just the verse, copied out twice, as if he had needed to hear it said back.

At dusk you carry the new wick up the spiral, counting the iron steps the way he taught you, one hand on the cold rail. The inspector stays below with his notebook and his doubts. Your fingers are numb when you trim the wick and set the glass back, but the flame takes on the second strike, pale and then fierce, and the beam swings out over the black water in its slow, patient arc.

Far out, a fishing boat that has been running blind since noon turns its bow toward the rock and holds there, steady, following you round.