Do there need to be so many scenes?

Peace of Mind

There’s no accounting for it (Create mystery with the title and action...THERE and IS have no meaning yet)
or the way it turns up in a chemo room
in the form of a bright, lively nurse
who sticks your port 
and keeps returning to check on you
even though every chair is filled.  (Can you let the poem be this scene...expanded?)

How can you not let go of fear? (Why are you changing scenen here? and person?)
You sip the coffee handed you (The YOU here is not the same as the first stanza)
as you take in the moment 
that honors the lost breast.
You try to memorize the smile 
of the one with the French accent seated (ONE refers back to breast?)
beside you. Her being here proves
that you were not abandoned,
that peace of mind saved its brightness
for you alone.

Peace of mind is the bank account
left by the former husband you never really understood, (I would rather think of one YOU rather than several pictures of "Peace")
the one set on coming to his granddaughter’s birth 
though his heart was congesting 
and breaking.

It finally comes to the farmer’s wife
bereft of child, to a little girl
whose drunk father sits in a dark corner. (These examples don't carry the same weight of reality as the first example)
It comes to the puppy lying outstretched 
in front of a heater,
to a widower examining cirrus clouds.

It even comes to rocky cliffs barren of trees,
to fog gathering and lifting its skirts, 
to the bent flowers weary of standing straight.

Pat, there seems to be way too many sceenes, parts, to this poem.  Combined they cause the reader to wander... multiple poems confuse me... how about a clear chemo picture word-painted in that shot in the port picture... there's such power, drama in that scene...
and I agree the "you" weanders... one personal and one preachy.  I would like more depth in that portal shot action... how does it feel, etc.  Dewell

stay with the peace of mind in the chemo room.  Thanks for the help  . . .  Pat

Peace of Mind

No accounting for the way
it turns up in a chemo room
in the form of a bright, lively nurse
who sticks my port
and keeps returning to check on me,
though every chair is filled.

No accounting for the way
I sip the coffee handed me
as I take in the moment
that honors the lost breast.

No accounting for the way
I try to memorize the laugh
of the woman with the French accent
seated beside me. Her being here
proves that I am not abandoned,
that peace of mind
saved its brightness
for me alone.

Hey Pat

It seems you added another player in the third stanza.  What if that became another poem.  I wonder if you can continue to describe the nurse of stanza one in a second stanza and end the poem with the persona's confession.  I bet you can still do this and not use "I" (just as an exercise...nothing wrong with first-person pronouns)

I like the repeating of first lines... keeps me focused... That conclusion in the last four lines seems too weak for the rest of the poem.  Can you beaf it up some?  Repeat the title in some way at this conclusion point?  This poem is a nice tight piece and I think all three stanzas are needed.  Hope this helps.  Dewell