Engendered Species: The Quale

To be a quale means
Never knowing what it's like
To be a nagel

To be locke'd up
And preserved in spectral form
A misleading thought

To be a quale is
To face absurd reduction
And strangely survive

To thrive in tangles
Of robustly rooted weeds
Ancient and stubborn

To feed on undead
Inconceivably painless
As they jerk and scream

To be used as bait
By the chalmer of zombies
To capture new brains

Take away the quale
An ecosystem falters
Without its guano

The circle of mind
Loses its tenuously
Balanced stagnation