In a shower stall like a phone booth...

In a shower stall like a phone booth, my identity is exposed
when the sweet scald from the brass head stalls out
and the curtain peels back like glass and steel on hinges.

The left leg stepped first
through the cold air that creeps up flesh,
down highways of blue, through cities of scars
shaped from cigarette butts and halved bottles in bars,
to the knob on my knee that cries when it bends,
below where the skin pales over braided quadriceps,
like a color change in tights
on defined superhero legs.

I snapped a red towel off its hook and sent it dancing.
It rode down my front and stole beads of water from
each wire hair from the patch on my chest
that trails down my weaved-cord stomach.
It flagged back into the air and curled behind me
over more maroon dabs,
parting gifts from a window I'd passed through once.
The towel's corners rest over the sharp angles of my
shoulders, and I let that red garment hang over
the muscle and bone of my back.

But that patch on my chest isn't my trademark.
You'll find mine inked into my forearm,
a big black spade in soft skin,
on top of thick veins that can't hide between the
thin dermis and the twine of strength under.
I got it when I was young and realized that
        I was invincible.
And it wont let me forget, when I wake up
and in the mirror is a body thats been battered and beaten,
but is still standing.
I look myself over once before I slide it under long sleeves and jeans.

And I leave the mirror in that Clark Kent disguise,
smile lines stretched under snakeskin eyes.
But I am ready stop snap it off when I have to
like black framed glasses.