A small solid black star tattoo on the upper chest near the collarbone, photographed on a person whose face is not shown.

Small star tattoo near the collarbone

Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A tiny solid black star sits on the upper chest close to the collarbone, with the rest of the skin warmly lit against a blue background. The star is a simple filled shape with no shading or detail, and it is small relative to the frame. The composition is a soft, slightly blurred close crop, with blurred hair at the top and a grey garment resting off the shoulder below.

Chest Star

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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

The landlady's ledger says the top room at Marrow Street has been let to a man called Pell since the herring season, but the sheets still smell of somebody else's lavender. You carry the hot water up three flights because the boiler at the Gull House gives out before the last lodger has bathed, and you have learned to count the stairs by their creak.

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Every evening the sea turns the colour of a bruise and then of ink, and the lamp at the end of the breakwater begins its slow turn. You watch it from the scullery window while you peel potatoes. Mrs Tregenza says the first star over the harbour is a promise to the men still out past the bar, and that you must never point at it with wet hands, or it will not come back.

One night a boy called Jory comes to the back door with a dented tin of matches and a pocketful of shells. He wants to know which star his father sailed by. You take him out onto the step, show him the single dark point that never blinks, and tell him it is the one that stays put. He asks if it gets lonely. You say it has the whole sky and the sea to keep it company, and he laughs at you for being soft.

Pell's boat comes in at dawn on the turning tide. Nobody on the quay is surprised and nobody says much. You stand behind the scullery door with peelings in your apron and think of the cold step and the one point that holds still. Later you take a stub of black crayon from Jory's tin and press a small star onto the back of your hand, just to see whether it will stay.