Lyrics

She could tell he was freezing,
This pale caballero andante.
But the clouds he could paint with the things he would say.

She rolled up in his sweater
While he rolled his R’s
And she smiled as he led her wide eyes up to the stars.

He said, I’ve touched the rocket that blasted Neil Armstrong to fame.
Tasted the icy Atlantic, leading wayward ships from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to Maine.
I’ve run foot races in places where no lesser man would dare go.
But I’ve never seen Mexico.

His tired eyes would sparkle.
As he told tales of daring and wonder, although,
The one he knew best was a lonely old life on the road.

The curls of her dark tresses,
Caught in the burrs on the pads of his callused hand As he was reaching for hers.

I’ve tracked a Bigfoot. I’ve bartered in trinkets and furs.
I once clung to the top of an old coastal redwood with nothing but courage and spurs.
Held fast to the bison that flattened the entire Allegheny Plateau.
But I never could let you go.

The moment she kissed him,
The chill on her lips brought her mother to mind.
Who said “whirlwinds of men pick you up just to leave you behind.”

She welled up and loosened the reins on her heart.
Si es solo esta noche, let it last just a couple more bars.

He might have been cold,
But he played it off better than he played that old five-string guitar.
She wasn’t that old,
But she knew he’d forget her.
No tiene sentido luchar.
That’s just the way that things are.

The sun would be up soon.
They laid there together on sandy clay loam.
She told him, “wherever you end up, I hope you find home.”

He cranked up his scrambler, stomped it in gear.
Then he wiped off the start of what might have been tears.
She looked down and remembered his sweater again,
But before she could catch him, he made like the wind.

And she she sang as she wept for that piece of her heart.
Then a Bonneville brake light lit up and swung round in the dark.

I threw the breaker that powered the Grand Island Fair.
I once tightroped the power lines from Osceola to Shelby and back on a dare.
Counted hawks between Gulfport and Omaha too many times in a row.
But I’ve never seen Mexico.