after information received
in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4 v 86

The population center of the USA

Has shifted to Potosi, in Missouri.



The calculation employed by authorities

In arriving at this dislocation assumes



That the country is a geometric plane,

Perfectly flat, and that every citizen,



Including those in Alaska and Hawaii

And the District of Columbia, weighs the same;



So that, given these simple presuppositions,

The entire bulk and spread of all the people



Should theoretically balance on the point

Of a needle under Potosi in Missouri



Where no one is residing nowadays

But the watchman over an abandoned mine



Whence the company got the lead out and left.

"It gets pretty lonely here," he says, "at night."