traveling home for the holidays

the christmas lights
which aren't
christmas lights
at all, but the red
blinking tail lights
of a million cars
on the road. like
rats on crack, they
are traveling home.
smelling that holiday
cheese, grinding
their sharp little teeth
to get there. from lane
to lane, hands white
knuckled on the wheel,
and on their foreheads
that thick long
purple vein, like
tinsel, that's
about to burst if
they don't get out
of the slowest lane
and begin to move.