Black linework tattoo of a bandaged hand with a crescent moon hanging from a ribbon, in blackwork style on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Wrapped hand and crescent moon on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A hatched, engraving-style hand wrapped in bands of cloth hangs from the top of the design, with a ribbon-like strap trailing down to a small bead and a crescent moon below. The outlines are bold and the shading is built from fine parallel and cross-hatched lines in black ink. The tattoo sits on the inner forearm and is shown in greyscale against a wooden floor, with the design centred on the arm.

Blackwork Forearm Hand Moon Crescent Ribbon Bead

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Eleven minutes before the vicar was due, Hannah came into the scullery holding her right hand out in front of her like something borrowed, the palm already blistering from the range where she had lifted the kettle without a cloth. I had the first-aid tin open on the draining board before she finished saying sorry.

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Her mother's lace would not do for a burn, so I used a strip of the old cotton sheet we kept for christenings, boiled and ironed flat, and wound it from knuckle to wrist in long, careful turns. Where the ribbon from her bouquet hung loose, I knotted it off and let the ends trail. Hannah laughed and said she looked like a mummy in a picture book. Her mother's silver bead was still threaded on that ribbon from the morning, so I tied it to the tail, the way you would weight a fishing line.

At the reception the band played something slow, and she held the bound hand up above her head while her husband, Tom, turned her under the paper lanterns. The little tin crescent from the nursery door swung against the blue of her dress and caught the light each time she spun. Nobody asked about the hand. Most of the guests took it for part of the design.

Late on, she sat beside me on the low wall outside and unwound one turn so I could see the blister beneath, already healing pink at the edges. 'You'll do mine next time,' she said, 'when I'm the careless one.' I said I would, and we both pretended she was joking.