Black tribal tattoo covering a shirtless man's shoulder and upper arm, with bold swirls and spiked solid lines.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal shoulder and upper arm tattoo

Blackwork · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A large black tribal design covers the shoulder and upper arm, with thick spiked bands curving around the deltoid and a bold swirl at the top of the shoulder. The solid black linework is shaded with soft grey tones that give the swirls a raised, dimensional look. The tattoo fills most of the frame against the bare chest and skin, which shows some warm tanning.

Blackwork Shoulder Upper arm Tribal Swirl Spike Abstract

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the wind has been at the vane again, the copper one over the lychgate, the one shaped like a whorl of thorns that Grandfather hammered out in 1931. It spins now with a noise like someone clearing their throat in the next room, and Mr Pascoe says it will come down in the first real gale unless I go up and bind the spindle. So I went up at six this morning, before the bell ringers, with the frost still white on the lead.

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From the tower you can see the whole bay turning. The tide had pulled back off the rocks and left the channel running in great curling eddies, the kind Grandfather used to draw for us on the backs of the shop bills, swirls with a spike trailing off each one like a comet's tail. I sat on the parapet with the wire between my teeth and watched the pattern of the water and thought of you out on the boat with your back to the wind, and how you always said the sea keeps no straight lines.

The spindle was seized with verdigris. I worked it loose with oil and a spanner Grandfather would have recognised, and when the vane finally swung free it turned to the south-west and held there, pointing at the headland, as if it had been waiting for someone to ask. I took that as a sign and came down the ladder with grazed knuckles and a grin I couldn't hide from Mrs Hosking, who was sweeping the path.

Come home at Easter. The vane is bright again and it sings when the wind is right, a low note like a kettle a long way off. I have kept the old drawing too, the one with the swirls, folded in my Bible. The spikes on it are sharper than I remembered. I think he meant them to point the way home.