Black and grey shaded moth tattoo with spread wings across the upper back of a woman whose head is turned away.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Shaded moth on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A moth with outstretched wings is tattooed centrally on the upper back, between the shoulder blades. The wings and body are rendered with dark outlines and soft grey shading that gives them volume. The photograph is black and white and shows the back and the back of the head, with the moth filling the middle of the frame.

Back Moth Wing Insect

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Hal, the snow closed the Scarth road on Tuesday and the carrier has not come up since, so this letter will sit in my apron pocket until someone goes down to Lorne with a mule. The lamp in the waystation window has drawn moths all week, big grey ones the colour of wet slate, and last night one came in under the door and settled on the flour bin as if it had been sent for.

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Mother says they are the souls of the drowned miners from the Carrick shaft, which is the kind of thing she says when she is tired. I think they are only moths. But this one had its wings spread so wide that the shadow of them covered the whole back wall, and I stood there with the poker in my hand, not wanting to touch it. The edges of each wing were scalloped and dark, like the hem of a Sunday dress, and along every one ran a pale band where the grey went soft as breath on glass.

I carried it out on the flat of a ledger and set it on the rail under the sign for the pass. The wind took it at once, up towards the cairn where the old toll boys used to light their fires. I watched it climb higher than any moth should fly until the dark swallowed it, and then I went back in to bank the stove.

Tell Sam the goats are fine and the pass will be clear by March, the drifts never last past the thaw. If you come up early I will leave the lamp lit. Your sister, Ros.