Naming Day

I am hiding in the house, someone’s coming through the gate

When the doorbell sounds like an air-raid siren, I am lying in wait

People used to come around, they fish-eyed and they rubber-necked

Anyone who’d come to visit now is automatically a suspect

I creep up to the window, me and my buzzing brain

And we watch two Jehovah's witnesses retreating down the lane

I’m not coming out yet

It’s too cold

Leave me alone ‘til I learn

How to spin straw into gold

I put on night-vision goggles, work my way along the wall into the kitchen

As soon as the first snow fell this year, my fingers started itching

And I locked up the doors and I sealed up all the windows

And friends came by sometimes for a while I never let ’em in though

And then they stopped, and then they stopped at last and now it’s just us three

These walls and the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints and me

And I’m not coming out yet

It’s too cold

Leave me alone ‘til I learn

How to spin straw into gold