The poem uses various kinds of repetition to add momentum and emphasize certain words and ideas.
In the first stanza, for example, the repetition of "know" in lines 2 and 4 draws attention to the contrast between what the speaker does and doesn't "know": she "know[s]" she's out of shape, but she doesn't "know" her "children"—they're strangers to her.
The poem relies on frequent parallelism as well. Take lines 8-11, where the repetition of the format "I [...] but [...]" suggests that there's something similar about the speaker applying makeup that "flakes off" and loving a man "through habit" even as "the proof / evaporates." In each of these situations, the speaker presents something presumably good about her life—making an effort with her appearance, loving her husband—only to quickly undermine it:
[...] I put powder on,
but it flakes off. I love him,
through habit, but the proof
has evaporated. [...]
Note, too, just how many sentences the speaker begins with the word "I." This reminds readers that they're listening to the speaker's internal monologue, getting a peek into her thoughts.
Those thoughts themselves are often repetitive, creating echoes across the poem that emphasize the speaker's despair. For example, the speaker repeats the word "Years" in lines 7 and 27. Each time, the word appears as its own sentence fragment, followed by a full-stop caesura and cut off from any kind of explanation:
Years. My face is swollen
[...]
laughing. Years. I had to rush out,
The speaker clearly feels "Years" removed from a version of herself that makes any sense to her, from a version of herself she can "Recogni[ze]." Similarly, the polyptoton across lines 14 and 19 (the repetition of the root word "weep" in "weepy" and wept") calls readers' attention to just how miserable the speaker feels.
Finally, diacope and epizeuxis add intensity to the poem's final conclusion:
and stared at me. Stared
and said I'm sorry sorry sorry.
The diacope of "stared" emphasizes the importance of the speaker finally recognizing what she's become: unhappy and unfulfilled in what should be the prime of her life.
Epizeuxis (the repetition of "sorry") then ends the poem dramatically, driving home the speaker's profound sense of regret.