St. Peter Claver

St. Peter Claver

BY TOI DERRICOTTE

Every town with black Catholics has a St. Peter Claver's.   

My first was nursery school.

Miss Maturin made us fold our towels in a regulation square and nap on army cots.

No mother questioned; no child sassed.

In blue pleated skirts, pants, and white shirts,

we stood in line to use the open toilets

and conserved light by walking in darkness.

Unsmiling, mostly light-skinned, we were the children of the middle class, preparing to take our parents' places in a world that would demand we fold our hands and wait.

They said it was good for us, the bowl of soup, its pasty whiteness;

I learned to swallow and distrust my senses.

On holy cards St. Peter's face is olive-toned, his hair near kinky;

I thought he was one of us who pass between the rich and poor, the light and dark.

Now I read he was "a Spanish Jesuit priest who labored for the salvation of the African Negroes and the abolition of the slave trade."

I was tricked again, robbed of my patron,

and left with a debt to another white man.