Pale Grey Track Suit Bottoms

I can't remember when grey track suit bottoms
became the definition of modern casual wear,
for fancy free young men to step out in.

At first they seemed to me like pyjamas
that young men could wear in public.  

I first noticed the change in legwear
when charity shops no longer stocked
my favourite coloured corduroys
-too few people now donated them
with wear left in them anymore.

From my past I knew
how young men disliked wearing underwear.
I have been there, I went through that phase
and many others as minor 'acts of rebellion'.

Nowadays I feel faintly alarmed
at the clear freedom of movement
that youths show when they walked
down the street in their tracksuits
wearing nothing underneath
-uncaring of the thoughts
they might be prompting in others. 

When they do that in my presence
I have to remind myself of how much
Victorian gentlemen once did the same
and hid what they were doing
behind resolutely asexual language.