Royalty or colours?

A king cannot see dead bodies

Before I am king, I am a father
Before I am a father, I’m a husband
Before I am a husband I’m human

Here, in this human house, in this flesh
I long to be normal, hold the dead,
shake their bodies and beg them to rise

Pay my final respects in cowries
in sweat and tears, by screaming their name
In the soil that slips out my palm, here

To lead, I must denounce being human.

LARDO