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