My Father's Sex Life

when my father called
me
to see if I could get him Viagra,
I laughed.

can you get me some on your phone
he said.

as if my phone was a microwave
oven, or a fax machine
for prescription pills.

he's 92 going on 16.

his new girlfriend is 83, a woman
he met in the 1970's.
someone he cheated on my mother
with
for awhile.

but they're back together, and
apparently the notion of
getting busy has crossed his mind
and other parts

of his aging anatomy.
I don't want to start something
I can't finish, he tells me.

I hold the phone away from my ear
and grimace.

he can hardly see, hardly hear,
hardly walk or breathe,
he has high blood pressure
and god knows what else, and yet

he's still a hound dog until
the bitter end.

I tell him no. I tell him
to go to his doctor and see what
he says.

he doesn't sound happy with this
advice and when we hang up,

he calls my sister, to see what
she can do.