I brought into the house from the garage today a bag with fruit...

beautiful fruit, that had been given to us earlier in the day 

by our friend Dorothy.

To get the fruit from the car to the kitchen

I picked up what I thought was an empty cloth bag in the garage

and dropped in Dorothy's grapefruit, pomegranates and oranges.

Margaret found that the bag hadn't been empty. 

She screamed... 

and I was startled by the scream 

and by the lizard. 

I took the bag out onto the porch

and the long, beautiful reptile walked casually back to freedom.