I just gave my dad
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
for the third consecutive Christmas. 
This is enough
to break his waspy resolve. 
He’s called me out in front of the family 
from sheer exasperation. 
I’m shocked.
I can’t tell if it’s worse to be called out the third time 
or not to be called out the second? 
The book is well outside 
his taste: history or spy-fi. 
It was a risk to begin with, 
and I don’t even remember taking it. 
It is the kind of thoughtlessness 
that prevents me from being a good gift-giver, 
or even just average. 
And my father still hasn’t read the book. 
I think if anyone had given me a book three times, 
albeit unknowingly, 
I would have at least cracked the cover. 
Maybe I’m shifting blame here, 
my deficiencies as a gift-giver exposed? 
Maybe I’ll double down next year,
and give it to him a fourth time
starting a game of literary chicken 
that can only end 
in a new pair of running shoes for Murakami.

Check out all the work in the Collection: Occasional Verse