Version of the Stalin Epigram

We live numb to the homeland under our feet Get too close, our whispers disperse to mist. But anywhere you stop to talk, the talk gravitates toward the Kremlin mountaineer— lingers fat as earthworms, his thumbs slugs; his every word a gram, a pound, a ton. Laughter wets his roach-brown upper lip; it glitters spit-and-polish, like his boots. His thuggish chicken-men encircle him. One by one, as he dandles them, they croon and simper, or miaow: Siberian cats. But only he's allowed to bellow out sentence after sentence, like horseshoes flung at the groin, brain, forehead, eyes. A firing squad floods his mouth with sweet relish, his chest warm as a hug from home.