I spent the summer of 2003 working my way south through Italy. I filled a notebook with stories and sketches and things picked up along the way. Like the time I lost my glasses from the window of the night train and woke in Rome to a shortsighted hangover; or the lizard in Paestum which led me to a mobile phone in the scrub, and then to others once I dialed the number for Amore.

When I bottomed out in Sicily the notebook was almost full. In Trapani I bought a boat ticket to Tunisia, that night sleeping rough in the docks still ranks highly in my list of most unpleasant experiences – spent fighting off dogs and cat-sized cockroaches, the hot knife in my hand until dawn in fear of something bigger.

The dawn boat departed at noon; I finally found sleep on deck. Later I woke beneath an amethyst sky, midway between continents, and hundreds of leaves of paper lay scattered in the wake of the boat as far as the eye could see. These sheets of paper, the trail of pale geometries extending to the horizon, made me want to write a poem. I reached for my notebook. It was only then that I noticed the boy crouching beside my backpack, shedding my stories a page at a time.