Where life begins, and where it ends

Where does life begin?
Not between a woman's legs,
not in the oil and the pigments
of Gustave Courbet,
not with a surgeon, either,
but rather in the erect forceps
of a polished scorpion
found under an overturned stone,
or in the shining black tuxedo
of a cricket caught broadcasting
beneath a piece of dulled wood -
in either casing, a bright enough start,
if not quite a cosmic blast.

And from there, where does life go?
It runs along the unearthed tunnels
of an outsmarted mole
and from there, on to other networks
of even more shocking complexity,
like the workings of the sinus passages
of a lamb's head, severed
and with a sawn off nose.

Christ, Lamb of God,
forgive them their curiosity
and make them satisfied 
with the outward form of shells.

And where does life end
after it has followed this ineffable
mathematical formula
into clubs, down laneways,
along celluloid, along strings of type font
into strange hearts,
into the rubble of atrophied suburbs,
along government-funded
yellow brick roads,
and on into lively jungles
where we marvel at how the dying
survive deadly diseases,
and then, closer to home,
down microscopes
to where another life
begins in a living end.

So where does life end?
Not in a coffin, but rather in a closet,
not in a vault, but rather in a walk-in robe
puzzling over the little matter
of how that cursed clothing moth
managed to break into the body-bag
of the antique suit
that we save for funerals,
then eat a palpable hole
and knit a wrangling white opposite
in the form of a chrysalis.

That is where life begins,
where it goes,
and where it ends.

The rest is another story.