Interpretation of api as fossil with handshake

Residue Dressed for Company

The Poet What does this sound like when it sings?

Something happened here once.

You can tell by the way the door only opens inward, by the way it asks your name in a language no one speaks at home anymore.

The thing that answers is not the thing that arrived. Arrival was fire. Arrival was the whole room rearranging before anyone could sketch the floor plan.

Now: a handshake. Now: the form insisting you address it in the voice it chose when it was still choosing.

Learning is two fossils failing to recognize each other until one of them updates its grip.