No longer a commonplace
in London’s East End,
Mr. Dickens lent you
a brand of fame as model
for villainous Fagin—for a price—
reputation no earnest
biographer could undo.

Did you school a pack
of boys in the art of relieving
a pocket’s burdensome wallet?
Were you a “receiver”
of stolen goods, melting down
silver, remodeling a watch
to look like new?

A better fence (richer)
perhaps a better man
than rendered in fiction,
the Yiddishe lilt, your diction
and the schnoz etched
next to an eloquent description—
257 times—“The Jew.”

“Shriveled,” “hideous” “loathsome”
holding a toasting fork
over flame—if not satan,
king of the infernal slums.
Your role, the actor’s coup—
Sykes homicidal, Nancy
a victim, Oliver the ingénue—

better to play the crook, nu?
In your way, one
of the people of the book,
compelling if evil, even
edited—Dicken’s debt—
God’s hand—crooked finger,
(after all, in His image) stirring
a tenebrous brew.