Denise Hill of Bay City, Michigan is our host today for the final day of the March Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. You can read her full prompt here. Today’s challenge is to twist up an idiom or aspect of figurative language to make it opposite or different in some way, then run with it. Since I brought my new chicks home yesterday from the friend who hatched them and kept them for a few weeks, I chose the idiom Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch. My chicks hatched on my mother’s birthday, February 19, and I first wrote about them here on March 10.
Welcome, Spring Chickens! Nine Easter Eggers I didn’t hatch my chickens Before they counted Eleven candled Only three-quarter dozen Made it out alive
Common Threads 
Kim,
The prompt today is fun. I took a bit of a naughty journey w/ my response. Anyway, love seeing the babies and the celebration of them in your poem. At first I thought only three survived, but after rereading, I know nine made it through the shell to live for you to tell their tale.
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“I didn’t hatch my chickens / Before they counted.” Beautiful manipulation.
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Very fun poem, Kim. I still need to go to the open write today. Love the photos of your chicks!
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I didn’t hatch my chickens/before they counted – I love that so much! These photos are awesome. Thank you for your chicks, so so sweet!
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I was so hoping I would find photos here of your lovely chicks – in a word, PRECIOUS! What a perfect turn of the idiom here in this celebratory poem marked by loss.
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I like “the three-quarter dozen.” Sounds like a good name for the now-feathered flock. I’m with the other commenters in loving the twisted idiom you created.
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I recently read a book that had hatching chickens in the storyline. When I read the line “eleven candled” I knew what that meant because of that book! Now if I could just remember it! Love the idea of turning figurative language around. I think kids could get into writing poetry this way!
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