We demonstrate a monolayer graphene saturable absorber (SA) based on D-shaped fiber for operation of the mode-locked fiber laser. The monolayer graphene is grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on Cu substrate and transferred onto the polymer, and then covered with D-shaped fiber, which allows light-graphene interaction via the evanescent field of the fiber. Due to the side-coupled interaction, the length of graphene is long enough to avoid optical power-induced thermal damage. Using such a graphene-based SA, stable mode-locked solitons with 4.5 nm spectral bandwidth and 713 fs pulsewidth at the 1563 nm wavelength have been obtained under 280 mW pump power. The influence of total cavity dispersion on the optical spectrum and pulse is also investigated by adding different lengths of single-mode fiber in the laser cavity.