LEAP INTO LITTLE BOXES

Leap Year Day, that calendar curiosity,
Comes to Brooklyn with velocity
Bringing crossword puzzlers Friday
Hoping each to make it "My Day"
In the annual competition
For their peers’ recognition
As the verbal king or queen
Of the
Up-and-Down-word scene.
The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament,
Otherwise known as Connecticut’s ornament,
Shifts to Brooklyn (with its subway trains)
In the search for more room–and more brains.
Which is how the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott,
Famed for its ballroom and commissariat,
Landed the World Series of puzzles,
Sport of head-slaps and of
nuzzles.
Founder and director Will Shortz
Of course will be there with retorts
To questions of style and suitability,
Issuing rules of enforceability.
Six hundred crossworders will keep heads bent
At the the weekend-long event.
Shortz, the New York Times puzzle master
Overseeing the race-to-be
faster,
Won matinee idol movie status
Starring in "Wordplay" with charm apparatus.
Soft of voice, the ideal boss,
Will never utters a word that’s cross.
Brooklyn’s crossword-off welcomes visitors,
All except vocal kibitzers.