James notices the pool-doos that float along the Mississippi River, both while waiting for the bus with his mother and while riding to his dentist’s appointment. “Pool-doo” is James’s interpretation of the French Creole word pouldeau, which comes from the French poule d’eau, or gallinule. The term, which translates literally to “water hen,” refers either to the gallinule or to the American coot. Both belong to the same family of chicken-like waterfowls distantly related to ducks. The American coot is plentiful in Louisiana all year around.

The “pool-doo” triggers in James the memory of being forced by his mother to kill his pet “red-birds,” or cardinals, for food. He wonders if the pool-doo is also edible. His ruminations on this bird help the reader understand both the desperate poverty of James and his family, as well as the demand that he usurp the role of family patriarch after the departure of his father.

Christian faith is a complicated facet of African American culture. On the one hand, the Black church, first formed on Southern plantations, fostered a sense of community and offered hope during the dark antebellum years. On the other hand, some Black activists have argued that faith in a Christian God both reinforces the dominance of their oppressor (Christianity was one of the tools of colonization and the forced assimilation of enslaved Africans into the plantation system) and encourages passivity in response to racism.