NO MORE

            There's nothing written in the Bible… that says,

            "If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles." 

                                                                        —Ray Charles

A thin-wristed woman, I might have made the cut.

And you surely fit my M.O.: dark-skinned, brilliant,

difficult, and addicted, with a voice unearthed from some

ancient burial ground of grief, the suit, the sunglasses,

the escort, all conferring respect on such an unlikely

prospect. Clean-shaven, quiet, well mannered, assured,

(though that last might have been the heroin), you were my

perfect bad boy. When told to hit the road, you just smiled,

offered excuses empty as pockets, made them sing it again,

then moaned “Aw, Baby,” when you failed to win them over.

Nobody could whisper “Baby” like you, raw sex and affection,

romance, hunger, religion, all cooked down into those sad

old refrains: that grace can be had for a song,

that even bad love can save you.

Kate Fox's poems have appeared in New Virginia Review, West Branch, Windsor Review, and Green Mountains Review, among others. Her chapbook, The Lazarus Method, was published by Kent State University Press as part of the Wick Poetry Chapbook Series.