Vaya Con Dios, Mi Amigos

 VAYA CON DIOS, MI AMIGOS

One long hot summer

            Long, long ago,

I worked in a soda

            Bottling plant

                        Down in Sarasota.

I'd hitchhiked into

            The strange town,

Found a boarding house

            That charged little

                        For a four-by-six room.

Across the street

            Was the soft drink plant.

They put me to work

            With the other low-wage hires,

                        Out in the yard

                                    With the Cubans.

We worked stripped to the waist

            In the hot Florida sun

                        All that long hot summer.

Soon my white boy pallor was gone.

            I looked as brown

                        As any Cuban in the yard,

And spoke enough Spanish

            To pass as one of the amigos.

Had ICE raided us then,

            Adios, amigos,

                        I'd have been rounded up

            With all the other Cubans.