  The hadronic mass spectrum of inclusive $\bar{B} \to X_s \ell^+ \ell^-$ is
investigated at next to leading order in the heavy quark expansion. For mild
cuts on the hadronic mass, the expansion, which applies when the cut is
released, remains convergent. However, the cuts used at BaBar and Belle to
reduce backgrounds from charged current semileptonic processes are too severe
for a description in terms of matrix elements of local operators to apply.
Strategies for interpolating between the two regions are discussed.
