Brooks begins the poem by presenting her characters and setting the scene. The first two lines serve a similar purpose to a dramatis personae and stage directions in a play. Before delving into the poem's tight, rhythmic structure, the reader comfortably knows the where and who of the piece so that once the repetitive structure begins, there is no question that the "we" is the seven pool players.
The remainder of the poem describes what the pool players are doing in the moment, what they have done to lead up to this moment, and what they have made a habit of doing. Thus Brooks deftly offers her reader a total picture of these boys' lives from a single, compressed glimpse into their day.
The first couplet, "We real cool. We / left school." gives the reader an idea of the players' ages. One may interpret "left school" as a permanent leaving, like they dropped out and are no longer students. This leaves their ages more ambiguous. One could also interpret "left school" as a temporary state, as in, the boys left school early that day and leave school early many days, but they are still sometime-participants in the school system. This interpretation is more conducive to imagining the players as young teenagers. The very first line we hear from voice of the "we" is "We real cool," a proclamation which ironically establishes their extreme insecurity in their performance of masculinity. The poem forces us to ask, Do cool people really have to say that they're cool?
After "left," the poem's verbs remain in the present tense and suggest habit. For example, the action of "lurking late" extends outside the boundaries of the Golden Shovel pool hall, because we understand from "We / Lurk late." that the speakers do not just lurk late on this one night, but lurk late all the time. The word "lurk" suggests a subversive presence; wherever a person "lurks," they are implicitly unwelcome. The use of the word "lurk" here communicates the players' discomfort as they move through the world policed and governed by predominantly white power structures.
The rest of the poem remains in the habitual present; while the reader understands that the speakers are currently in the Golden Shovel pool hall at the moment of narration, the tense clues us in to the fact that they are speaking more generally about their lives and the lives of young men in similar situations, with similar backgrounds to them.
