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I recently received a PM from a member of postpoems who, although fairly inactive with his own postings, has done me the honor of monitoring my Ad Astra series.  In the PM, he made an inquiry about a phenomenon that is repeatedly present in many of my poems, and perhaps deserves some sort of explanation, however speculative on my part.

   I have amended the text of his PM, with his permission, in order to further protect his privacy:

   "I am approximately the same age as you, and have lived the majority of my life with the burden of shame inflicted upon me by my parents who, in order to comply with society's heterocompulsory impositions and intrusions, felt that I, at that tender age, should be broken of what they deemed subversive and perverse desires.

   "Your poems in that series have given me the courage to at least articulate a question that has pleasantly troubled me since the onset of adolescence:  why did, and does, a glimpse of adolescent boyfeet---bare, or enclosed in socks, but definitely shoeless; and almost concealed, as you have so often described it, by baggy or puddled cuffs of bell-bottom jeans or other styles of pants and slacks---become an erotic experience for me?  Your poems about Antony and Gary L---, especially, reminded me of my own experiences; and, since you are able to express them in that way, I feel I can safely submit this question to you."

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I have no objectively documentable or provable evidence to support an explanation, so I can only give you a very subjective explanation.

    When, on Speptember 9th, 1976, I matriculated to college, a dorm school some fifty miles North of my residence, such that I lived there seven days a week, I was very pleasantly shocked to discover that, during balmy weather (and that year, in our vicinity, set records for warm temperatures, even into early November), many of the student population attended class shoeless---barefoot or just socks---or entered the dining hall that way; or studied, thus, in the Library.  The campus was very small and bucolic, and seemed very rural within the small, industrial town that enclosed it (although the town, itself, was enclosed by one of the most agrarian counties in our state):  so we walked everywhere, and every needful destination was approximately no more than ten minutes away.  Especially in the center of the campus, an area called the Hollow preserved in its landscape (which included a small bridge over a shallow and narrow branch of the most major creek in the county) a sense of the rural, with very little pavement, and long, thick grass which provided a very comfortable walking surface for shoelessness.  Many of us actually added to our walks to and from classes and meals by taking the long way through the Hollow simply to imbibe its beauty.

     Shoelessness was and is, also, a metonmy for erotic need that is, for some, difficult to express otherwise.  The mid- to late seventies, during which my undergrad experience took place, had reacted to the "sexual revolution" of the sixties to become extremely repressive, almost a throwback to the frustrations and heterocompulsory behavior associated with the fifties.  At my college, the removal of shoes (if they had been worn) by,  or the shoeless arrival of, a visitor to one's dormitory room was a powerful sign of acceptance and an implicit suggestion of some degree (small to large) of intimacy to be anticipated.  Or, when a particularly beautiful or desirable person was met, and that person was shoeless, the usual greeting was either "Nice feet," or "Nice socks" (as applicable); and if that was met by a friendly or favorable response, the implication of something more to be anticipated commenced.

     Having been thus initiated to this custom at my college, I decided, early in my preparation to become a poet, to transfer this metanomic social practice into my poetry.

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I have attempted to answer your query honestly, and to the best of my knowledge; but I, again, remind you that my answer is purely subjective and speculative, based upon personal experience only.

Starward