Not easy, those first ten years / saying no
-- Speaker (Lines 4-5 )

Importance: This line in the first stanza establishes the poem’s function as a retrospective — the speaker is looking back into her past. By putting the action of “saying no” in its own standalone line, the speaker places extra emphasis on the challenge of saying no and what she might have been saying no to. While the enjambed following line clarifies parties and husbands, the enjambment suggests there may have been other things the speaker struggled to say no to.

constant as a captain’s wife / always turning to the sea
-- Speaker (Lines 14-15)

Importance: This line uses consonance and simile to create a rhythmic comparison between the speaker and a captain’s wife left behind on land. This image alludes to the island setting of Neverland, and communicates a subtle irony: it is the speaker who was forced to leave by sea, yet they counterintuitively feel...