[Verse 1] She sat me in the kitchen chair The same one that faced the yard She said, you talk too much for winter You talk too much for what we guard She had a cloth across her knees She had a tin of shining thin She said, this is not a punishment This is how the year stays in I let her tilt my face to lamplight I let her thumb my lower lip I had already walked the corpse road I had already made the trip [Pre-Chorus] Not a kiss Not a vow Not a game to make me still A seam A hush A mercy with an edge of will [Chorus] She sewed my mouth with pins So the house could keep its name She sewed my mouth with pins So I would not give the road away If a secret wants a window It can use somebody else She sewed my mouth with pins And I thanked her for the help [Verse 2] I had come home full of inventory What they buried, what they spent What the widow cut in daylight What the coat took when the frost hit I wanted to tell the living street I wanted to make the lanterns crack She said the town can hold a funeral It cannot hold the whole of that So she closed me like a letter That was never meant to send Every pin a little period At the ending of a year of men [Pre-Chorus] Not a kiss Not a vow Not a cruelty for show A lock A line A way to let the morning go [Chorus] She sewed my mouth with pins So the house could keep its name She sewed my mouth with pins So I would not give the road away If a secret wants a window It can use somebody else She sewed my mouth with pins And I thanked her for the help [Verse 3] I slept sitting up that night Afraid to turn and feel the gleam The metal tasted like the apple And the black salt and the stream In the dream I tried to warn her That a hush can grow a tooth That a mouth shut in October Can stay shut when it needs the truth She only looked at me and nodded Like she had already paid that cost Then the lychgate opened inward And the pins were all I had not lost [Bridge] I can still speak I choose not to That is the difference in the rite She did not steal my language She taught it how to wait for light If I bleed a word too early The dead mile comes up the stair So I keep the shining quiet Like a coat left on a chair [Breakdown] Pin Pin Hold Pin Pin Close What I saw What I know Stays behind This mouth This door [Verse 4] By All Saints I took them out One by one into a cup My lips remembered how to open But they did not offer much I told her thank you in the kitchen I told her nothing of the road She poured coffee. She watched the window She understood the older code If you need a song about a monster This is not that kind of hymn This is two people in a cold house Keeping October in [Chorus] She sewed my mouth with pins So the house could keep its name She sewed my mouth with pins So I would not give the road away If a secret wants a window It can use somebody else She sewed my mouth with pins And I thanked her for the help [Final Chorus] She sewed my mouth with pins I can feel them when I sing She sewed my mouth with pins It was love, and it was discipline If you meet me on the corpse road Do not ask me for the whole I was closed for a reason And I still honor that hold [Outro] Tin shut Chair pushed in Mouth mine Hush still in She sewed my mouth with pins Then she let the morning in
