Colts and mindreading...

In today's Writer's Almanac the quoted poem ("The Palomino Stallion" by Alden Nowlan) contains these lines:

the eleven-month-old
palomino stallion

No. No no no.

That's like saying "the five-year-old man". This isn't even a yearling, let alone a stallion.

(Still, that's better than yesterday, when they tried to pass this

Pick a number from one to ten. Okay, now multiply that number
by nine. You will have a two-digit number. Add those two digits.
Now subtract five from that number. Take that number and find
its corresponding letter in the alphabet (1=A, 2=B, etc.). Now
think of a country that begins with that letter. Now name an
animal that begins with the last letter of the country. Finally, name
a fruit that begins with the last letter of that animal.

off as a poem. Nowlan's actually is, instead of one of those "mind-reading" tricks. The "poem" is called "Denmark, Kangaroo, Orange" since those are by far the likeliest answers. Once you've been forced to D (which you are), the odds are enormously high that you'll pick Denmark for your country. Very few people will think of Djibouti, Domenica, or the Dominican Republic, which are your other choices. That means it's likely you'll pick "kangaroo" - not quite as likely as picking "Denmark", perhaps, but pretty likely (what else is there? koala? klipspringer?). And a color that starts with "O"? It's clever. But poetry?)