The life you save may be your own but it may be the secret

life of Walter Mitty who holds a rose for Emily

against the yellow wallpaper in the house

of Usher which I have heard is falling

and while everything that rises must converge

that which falls does not so it may shatter into 17

syllables on hills like white elephants.

.

The life you save may be your own but it may be the short happy

life of Francis Macomber who knows the sun also

rises over a world where a good man is hard to find

there were less and then there were none writing

letters from the earth about the snows of Kilimanjaro or the story

of an hour as we all come closer to the end

of something and I write this

as I lay dying.

A/N: I'll give kudos and a special mention to anyone who has read all the stories/novels listed in the poem! See if you can find them, then submit a review listing them and a short (like, five word) summary of each. Just enough so I know you've read it. A fun little game, if you feel like it. By the way: Only one of them is not a straight-up quotation of the title.