Days are hot in the desert.
Night are cold.
And Mama likes the west.
Daddy likes to be alone.

Its 1965 in a roadside park somewhere between Los Cruces and Deming.
The little huts look like Indian houses.
Mexican houses.
Mexican Indian houses.
We parked by the covered picnic table.  Daddy drove around behind
Because old Oldsmobiles don’t back up.

There is a lot of crying today.
Days are hot in the desert.
Nights are cold.
And Mama likes the west.
Daddy is tired.

The two youngest sleep in the back seat floorboards one on each 
Side of the drive shaft mound.
I sleep on a pillow like daddy.
I have a cover made out of old rags and towels.  Mama and daddy made it.
I’m not born yet.

Mama sleeps in the front seat.  Daddy sleeps in the back.
I sleep under the rear windshield and see the stars.  Desert stars.
And mama likes the west.
Daddy hates it all.
We are on a hopeful road, Dallas to Phoenix.
Nobody knows us there.

The summer of love is...
...violent!
The rear windshield of a ‘55 Chevy is bigger and so am I.
A new baby in the front seat floorboard.  And mama loves the west.
Daddy hates mama.  I see stars.  I love the stars.  Mercury,
Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto...
Alan Sheapard...
Gus Grisum, John Glen, Wally Scharrah, Scott Carpenter, Deke Slaton, Gordon Cooper...
Freedom 7...
Liberty Bell 7, Friendship 7, Faith 7.
We are all asleep.

Nights are cold.

The rear windshield of a ‘60 Galaxy is small,
But I can’t out grow my bed,
Between Los Cruses and Deming.
Fear surrounds us.

Those men in Apollo 13 are flying in the dark.  They may not come Home.
The days are hot in the desert.
We’ve broken down too.
But we have no home.  Nights are cold.
I look for them in the sky.
And mama likes the west.
I don’t see or hear...
...the front seat.
Mercury, Venus...
Alan Sheapard, Gus Grisum..
Freedom 7, Liberty Bell 7...
Daddy likes to be alone!
I want to be in space.

It is quiet,
And I can have...
I can have...
Peaceful thoughts of a woman on the moon.