The Dolls by John Ciardi

Miss Tee-Joy

Sunny, Tee-Joy’s sister. 

There’s a world of collectors of these unique, beautiful, mesmerizing Blythe dolls.  These two sisters, Tee-Joy and Sunny, were made by a doll customizing artist in Detroit.  My non-customized dolls all come from one place:  The Junie Moon Shop in Tokyo, Japan.  They’re not sold anywhere else except EBay.  A fun, interesting hobby.

The Dolls

BY JOHN CIARDI

Night after night forever the dolls lay stiff

by the children’s dreams. On the goose-feathers of the rich,

on the straw of the poor, on the gypsy ground—

wherever the children slept, dolls have been found

in the subsoil of the small loves stirred again

by the Finders After Everything. Down lay

the children by their hanks and twists. Night after night

grew over imagination. The fuzzies shed, the bright

buttons fell out of the heads, arms ripped, and down

through goose-feathers, straw; and the gypsy ground

the dolls sank, and some—the fuzziest and most loved

changed back to string and dust, and the dust moved

dream-puffs round the Finders’ boots as they dug,

sieved, brushed, and came on a little clay dog,

and a little stone man, and a little bone girl, that had kept

their eyes wide open forever, while all the children slept.

John Ciardi, “The Dolls” from In the Stoneworks (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961)