Small black fine line cross tattoo on the upper back of a woman with her hair in a bun, photographed from behind.

Small cross tattoo on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A photograph taken from behind shows a small, solid black cross tattoo at the base of the neck, between the shoulder blades. The cross has clean, even lines and appears to be filled with black ink. The subject wears a black strappy top, and the warm-toned, cluttered bedroom behind her is slightly out of focus.

Fine line Back Cross Earring

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Harold Pell never let me cut a cross until I could draw one that a steel square would pass without complaint. 'The eye forgives a crooked letter,' he said, tapping the Portland offcut with his pencil, 'but it hunts a crooked cross like a dog hunts a cat.' I spent a fortnight on paper before he let me near the stone.

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The rule was simple and unforgiving. Both arms had to be the same length, meeting at a true right angle, and the grooves had to hold the same depth from the first stroke to the last. Any wobble showed in the shadow when the sun came low over the churchyard wall, and then the whole thing looked like it had been made in a hurry by someone who did not mean it.

Years later, when Harold's hands had gone, I was sent to clear the back corner of St Aidan's, where the council wanted the nettles down before a funeral. Under the dock leaves sat a small grey marker no bigger than a loaf of bread, its letters worn to shadow. Only the cross was still sharp. The arms matched to the millimetre, the edges clean as the day they were cut, and the depth of each groove agreed with the next.

I knelt in the wet grass and ran my thumb down the upright. There was no name and no date, only that one mark, made once with certainty and never needed again.