Mother and Daughter

That they should die together is,
In certain ways, fitting.
The turmoil of leading spotlit lives,
Always under the mandate, Perform! Perform!
Exacerbates the latent stresses
Along the maternal-filial axis.
The wisdom of one who has learned the pitfalls,
Who can smell a bait-loaded trap from afar,
Is scorned by the other, who twirls ahead blithely--
For her, this is paradise fashioned anew.
Such dances are improvised: jazzier versions
Replace the old two-steps, now deemed passé.
We mourn the passing of both these lovelies,
Who--each on her own--enlivened the arts,
Who pranced and sparkled through decades of cinema,
Whose celluloid specters will glow forever.